Elemental imaging of heterogeneous inorganic archaeological samples by means of simultaneous laser induced breakdown spectroscopy and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry measurements

Olga Syta; Barbara Wagner; Ewa Bulska; Dobrochna Zielińska; Grażyna Zofia Żukowska; Jhanis Gonzalez; Richard Russo

doi:10.1016/j.talanta.2017.12.011

Elemental imaging of heterogeneous inorganic archaeological samples by means of simultaneous laser induced breakdown spectroscopy and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry measurements

Talanta. 2018 Mar 1:179:784-791. doi: 10.1016/j.talanta.2017.12.011. Epub 2017 Dec 14.

Authors

Olga Syta¹, Barbara Wagner², Ewa Bulska¹, Dobrochna Zielińska³, Grażyna Zofia Żukowska⁴, Jhanis Gonzalez⁵, Richard Russo⁵

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Chemistry, Biological and Chemical Research Centre, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland.
² Faculty of Chemistry, Biological and Chemical Research Centre, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland. Electronic address: barbog@chem.uw.edu.pl.
³ Institute of Archaeology, Faculty of History, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland.
⁴ Chemical Faculty, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland.
⁵ Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA; Applied Spectra, Inc., Fremont, CA, USA.

PMID: 29310308
DOI: 10.1016/j.talanta.2017.12.011

Abstract

Multilayered fragments of murals were used to evaluate the usefulness of two laser-based instrumental methods: laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) and laser ablation (LA) inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for elemental imaging of unique historic samples. Simultaneous LA/LIBS measurements with the use of 266nm Nd:YAG laser were performed on cross-sections of mediaeval Nubian objects with specific blue painting layers including either Egyptian blue (CaCuSi₄O₁₀) or lapis lazuli (Na_8-10Al₆Si₆O₂₄S_2-4). A combined use of both laser-based methods allowed for clear distinguishing of blue pigments based on visual imaging of a chemical composition of heterogeneous archaeological inorganic samples. The identification of the pigments was confirmed with Raman spectroscopy.

Keywords: Imaging; LA-ICP-MS; LIBS; Pigment identification.