Abstract
In this chapter, the potential and limitations of neutron imaging methods for the research into cultural heritage objects will be demonstrated on the example of investigations carried out at the neutron imaging facilities of the Paul Scherrer Institute. The working principles of neutron imaging and differences to conventional X-ray imaging studies are explained and illustrated on practical examples. Often, neutron and X-ray imaging methods can be used in complementary or even synergetic manner (data fusion).
In some cases, a simple radiography inspection is enough to answer questions or to verify hidden features. In other cases, it is necessary to perform neutron tomography for the understanding of an object by verification of the volumetric material distributions. By means of virtual slices and digital segmentations, it is often possible to derive the size, distribution, and structure of the inner components of an archaeological artifact shedding new light on the studied objects.
Neutron imaging has much higher penetration ability for heavy elements, in particular precious metals (e.g., Au, Ag, Pt) but also for the components of widely used metal alloys such as bronze or brass (Cu, Zn, Sn, Pb). At the same time, neutrons show high sensitivity for some light elements, in particular for hydrogen, which is of special interest as it is an element present as well in organic material as well as in many corrosion products. This complementary behavior makes it a unique method to investigate organic material or the corrosion within metal objects. The latter can be used to characterize the status of corroded artifacts and to plan and verify their conservation and protection process.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Lehmann EH, Mannes D (2012) Wood investigations by means of radiation transmission techniques. J Cult Herit 13(3 SUPPL):S35–S43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2012.03.017
Peter O (1946) Neutronen-Durchleuchtung. Zeitschrift Naturforschung Teil A 1:557
Lehmann E et al (2004) Neutron imaging — detector options and practical results. Nucl Instrum Meth A 531:228
Lehmann EH, Vontobel P, Deschler-Erb E, Soares M (2005) Non-invasive studies of objects from cultural heritage. Nuclear Inst Methods Phys Res Section A 542:68–75
Lehmann EH, Ridikas D (2015) Status of neutron imaging – activities in a worldwide context. Phys Procedia 69:10–17
Kak AC, Slaney M (2001) Principles of computerized tomographic imaging. Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Philadelphia
Stewart P (1980) Cold neutron imaging for gas turbine inspection. Real Time Radiol Imag 180–198
Peetermans S, Lehmann E (2013) Simultaneous neutron transmission and diffraction contrast tomography as a non-destructive 3D method for bulk single crystal quality investigations. J Appl Phys 114:124905
Pfeiffer F, Grünzweig C, Bunk O, Frei G, Lehmann E, David C (2006) Neutron phase imaging and tomography. Phys Rev Lett 96:215505
Mannes D, Lehmann E (in press) Monitoring the condition of played historical brass wind instruments by means of neutron imaging. In: Av. Steiger, D. Allenbach, M. Skamletz (eds) ROMANTIC BRASS – Präventive Konservierung, Material und Akustik. Symposien 4 und 5, Schliengen: Argus 2020 (Musikforschung der Hochschule der Künste Bern, Bd. 15)
Lang J, Middleton A (2015) Radiography of cultural material, 2nd edn. Elsevier, Burlington, p 3. ISBN 0 7506 6347 2
Mannes DC (2009) Non-destructive testing of wood by means of neutron imaging in comparison with similar methods. PhD thesis ETH Zurich
NIST Center for Neutron Research, Compute Neutron Attenuation and Activation. https://www.ncnr.nist.gov/instruments/bt1/neutron.html. Accessed: 20 May 2020
Raventos M et al (2017) A method for neutron scattering quantification and correction applied to neutron imaging. Phys Procedia 88:275–281
Strobl M, Manke I, Kardjilov N, Hilger A, Dawson M, Banhart J (2009) Advances in neutron radiography and tomography. J Phys D Appl Phys 42(24):243001
Banhart J (2008) Advanced tomographic methods in materials research and engineering. Oxford University Press, New York
Lehmann EH, Vontobel P, Wiezel L (2001) The radiography facility NEUTRA at SINQ and its potential for use as European reference facility. Nondestruct Test Evaluat 16(2–6):191–202. https://doi.org/10.1080/10589750108953075
Kaestner AP, Hartmann S, Kühne G, Frei G, Grünzweig C, Josic L, … Lehmann EH (2011) The ICON beamline–a facility for cold neutron imaging at SINQ. Nuclear Inst Methods Phys Res Section A 659(1):387–393
Trtik P et al (2015) Improving the spatial resolution of neutron imaging at Paul Scherrer Institut – the Neutron Microscope Project. Phys Procedia 69:169–176
Lehmann E (2017) Neutron imaging facilities in a global context. J Imaging 3(4):52. https://doi.org/10.3390/jimaging3040052
Mannes D, Lehmann E, Furger A (2016) Study of ancient metallic artifacts by using neutron imaging techniques. Bulletin de l’Association Pro Aventico 57:171–180
Lehmann E, Hartmann S, Speidel M (2010) Investigation of the content of ancient Tibetan metallic Buddha statues by means of neutron imaging methods. Archaeometry 52:416–428
Henss M., Lehmann E (2017) The scanned Buddha, Orientations, June, pp 75–81
Jacot-Guillarmod et al (2019) Multi-modal tomography to assess dechlorination treatments of iron-based archaeological artifacts. Heritage Sci 7:–29. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-019-0266-x
Mannes D, Lehmann E, Masalles A, Schmidt-Ott K, Przychowski Av, Schaeppi K, … Hunger K (2014) The study of cultural heritage relevant objects by means of neutron imaging techniques. Insight 56(3):137
Masalles A, Lehmann E, Mannes D (2015) Non-destructive investigation of “The Violinist” a lead sculpture by Pablo Gargallo, using the neutron imaging facility NEUTRA in the Paul Scherrer Institut. Phys Procedia 69:636–645
Mannes D, Benoit C, Heinzelmann D, Lehmann E (2014) Beyond the visible: combined neutron and X-ray imaging of an altar stone from the former Augustinian Church in Fribourg, Switzerland. Archaeometry 56(5):717–727
De Pury-Gysel A, Lehmann E, Giumlia-Mair A (2016) The manufacturing process of the gold bust of Marcus Aurelius: evidence from neutron imaging. J Roman Archaeol 29:477–493. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1047759400072275
De Pury-Gysel A (2017) Die Goldbüste des Septimius Severus. Librum Publisher, Basel, Frankfurt/M, pp 108–116. https://doi.org/10.19218/3952454268
Deschler-Erb E, Lehmann E, Wöhrle M (2015) Using neutron imaging methods for the non-destructive investigation of large ancient bronze artifacts. In: Deschler-Erb E, Ph. Della Casa (eds) New research on ancient bronzes. Acta of the XVIIIth International Congress on ancient bronzes. Zurich studies in archaeology, vol 10, University Zürich, Zürich, pp 311–315
Lehmann E, Deschler-Erb E, Ford A (2010) Neutron tomography as valuable tool for the non-destructive analysis of historical bronze sculptures. Archeometry 52(2):272–285
Deschler-Erb E, Lehmann E, Pernet L, Vontobel P (2004) The complementary use of neutrons and X-ray for the non-destructive investigation of archaeological objects from Swiss collections. J Archaeometry 46(4):647–661
van Langh R, James J, Burca G, Kockelmann W, Zhang SY, Lehmann E, Estermann M, Pappot A (2011) New insights into alloy compositions: studying renaissance bronze statuettes by combined neutron imaging and neutron diffraction techniques. J Anal At Spectrom 26:949–958
van Langh R, Lehmann E, Hartmann S, Kaestner A, Scholten F (2009) The study of bronze statuettes with the help of neutron imaging techniques. Anal Bioanal Chem 395:1949–1959
van Langh R (2012) Technical studies of Renaissance Bronzes. The use of neutron imaging and time-of-flight neutron diffraction in the studies of the manufacture and determination of historical copper objects and alloys. PhD TU Delft
Peetermans S, van Langh R, Lehmann E, Pappot A (2012) Quantification of the material composition of historical copper alloys by means of neutron transmission measurements. J Anal At Spectrom. https://doi.org/10.1039/C2JA30141E
Mannes D, Schmid F, Frey J, Schmidt-Ott K, Lehmann E (2015) Combined neutron and X-ray imaging for non-invasive investigations of cultural heritage objects. Phys Procedia 69:653–660
Cnudde V et al (2008) High-speed neutron radiography for monitoring the water absorption by capillarity in porous materials. Nuclear Inst Methods Phys Res Section B 266:155
Kardjilov N, Lehmann E, Steichele E, Vontobel P (2004) Phase-contrast radiography with a poly-chromatic neutron beam. Nuclear Inst Methods Phys Res Section A 527:519–530. Published online Epub7/21/
Kockelmann W, Frei G, Lehmann EH, Vontobel P, Santisteban JR (2007) Energy-selective neutron transmission imaging at a pulsed source. Nuclear Inst Methods Phys Res Section A 578:421–434
Kaestner AP, Hovind J, Boillat P, Muehlebach C, Carminati C, Zarebanadkouki M, Lehmann EH (2017) Bimodal imaging at ICON using neutrons and X-rays. Phys Procedia 88:314–321. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phpro.2017.06.043. ISSN 1875-3892
Betz B, Grünzweig C, Lehmann EH (2014) Advances in neutron imaging with grating interferometry. Mater Eval 72(4):491–496
International Society for Neutron Radiography (ISNR). Overview of Neutron imaging user facilities. http://www.isnr.de/index.php/facilities/user-facilities. Accessed: 20 May 2020
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Mannes, D., Lehmann, E.H. (2022). Neutron Imaging of Cultural Heritage Objects. In: D'Amico, S., Venuti, V. (eds) Handbook of Cultural Heritage Analysis. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60016-7_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60016-7_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-60015-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-60016-7
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Earth and Environmental Sciences