Caveat: measurement strategy for ultra-thin metal layers in gold leaf mosaic tesserae by Monte Carlo SEM-EDS micro- and nanoanalysis simulations

• Abstract:

  A very useful technique that can provide the local composition of a very thin material, such as the metal leaves of mosaic tesserae, is the Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) coupled to Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectrometry (EDS). However a careful analytical strategy must be considered when dealing with tesserae samples, because the metal leaf is extremely thin (0.2 – 1 µm), whereas the thickness of the support and the cartellina glasses are usually more than three order of magnitude thicker, and many artefacts could arise from the electron and X-Ray scattering in solids and EDS detector – sample configurations and arrangements. In order to optimize the microanalysis strategy of mosaic tesserae, in this work the effects related to the metal leaf thickness, SEM-EDS setup and detector physics were considered, providing results that could be very helpful to researchers involved in this field. Furthermore, this work provides a correct micronanoanalytical strategy to obtain an accurate SEMEDS quantitative analysis also of other ultrathin layers, substrates, composites and powder materials.
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• Download:

  IMEKO-TC4-ARCHAEO-2017-125.pdf
• DOI:

  _unreg_tc4-ARC-2017.125

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