Two-photon induced fluorescence for archaeological applications

Spectroscopy techniques based on laser technology are becoming an important tool in art-conservation studies and archeology. In general, the objectives are to determine the artifact conservation, to understand how the materials were made and applied and to determine its origin and trade pattern. The most common techniques are laser induced fluorescence (LIF) (Weibring et al.,2001) and Raman microscopy (Smith and Clark, 2004), which enable the material identification based in their emitted spectra. In this work, however, the aim was detecting, rather the characterizing, the presence of paint. The author have used for the first time two-photon induced fluorescence (TPIF) in archaeology, to recover the missing name in an archeological artifact. The fragment of Roman amphora found in the archeological site of Iesso, Spain was used to demonstrate the technique.