Ion beam analysis for cultural heritage

Beams of ions from electrostatic accelerators have long been used by curators, conservators, and archaeologists for deep analysis of the near-surface of cultural heritage samples after simpler methods have been exhausted. Ion beam analysis is a versatile and powerful method with many different imaging and analysis modalities which can be done without sample preparation and which is essentially nondestructive. This introduction is aimed at making users aware of the facilities available at national laboratories and how to use them, including a survey of characteristic and novel cultural heritage applications. The spectrometry modalities include particle-induced luminescence (both X-rays and optical photons), particle elastic and inelastic scattering, and combinations of these. Imaging at high spatial resolution is easy with modern equipment for all the spectrometries. These energetic particle beams are penetrating, allowing fully featured in-air analysis