Scanning and transmission electron microscopy in cultural heritage: State of the art
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The aim of this review is to analyse and report the importance of scanning and transmission electron microscopy applied to cultural heritage. Even if a lot of work has been carried out by chemical and microanalytical methods, the contribute of the morphological study has been only recently focused. In particular, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), requiring easier specimen preparations, has been widely applied to the study of ancient wood, textiles, metal or lithic objects, giving precious information on their surface details, manufacturing or possible contaminating agents. On the other hand, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis, more difficult due to sample embedding and sectioning, can provide important details mainly on wood and textile samples. Both techniques are becoming progressively more useful for both cultural heritage study and diagnostic.
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