Festa, G.; Kardjilov, N.; Andreani, C.: Probing Our Heritage with Neutrons - One Successful Story. In: Kardjilov, Nikolay, Festa, Giulia (Eds.) [Ed.] : Neutron Methods for Archaeology and Cultural HeritageCham: Springer, 2017 (Neutron Scattering Applications and Techniques). - ISBN 978-3-319-33163-8, p. 3-18
10.1007/978-3-319-33163-8_1
Abstract:
Probing our heritage reminds us of a variety of issues in Heritage Science: from the correct determination of historical and cultural time-frame of artefacts, to their location and method of production, to the choice of best treatments and environmental conditions for their restoration. A large variety of chemical, physical and microstructural techniques are employed by Museums and art experts to characterize objects of cultural significance. Most of these methods are invasive and probes like X-rays and charged particles have limited penetration power. Neutrons penetrate thick layers, depending on their energy, without substantial attenuation, a quality which makes them ideal to study and visualize the interior (bulk) properties of materials in a totally non-destructive and non-invasive way. The high sensitivity to specific light elements (e.g. H) is an additional special property of the neutron probe. Neutron techniques are increasingly used for the quantitative, non-invasive analysis of many aspects of cultural heritage preservation in a broad sense: museum collections, artefacts, books, manuscripts, musical instruments, archaeological findings.