To understand in-depth material properties, manufacturing, and conservation in cultural heritage artefacts, there is a strong need for advanced characterization tools that enable analysis down to the nanometric scale. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and electron diffraction (ED) techniques, like 3D precession electron diffraction tomography and ASTAR phase/orientation mapping, are proposed to study cultural heritage materials at nanoscale. In this work, we show how electron crystallography in TEM helps to determine precise structural information and phase/orientation distribution of various pigments in cultural heritage materials from various historical periods like Greek amphorisks, Roman glass tesserae, and pre-Hispanic Maya mural paintings. Such TEM-based methods can be an alternative to synchrotron techniques and can allow distinguishing accurately different crystalline phases even in cases of identical or very close chemical compositions at the nanometric scale.

中文翻译：

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表征文化遗产材料的新型 TEM 显微镜和电子衍射技术：从古希腊文物到玛雅壁画

为了深入了解文化遗产人工制品的材料特性、制造和保护，迫切需要能够进行纳米级分析的高级表征工具。透射电子显微镜 (TEM) 和电子衍射 (ED) 技术，如 3D 进动电子衍射断层扫描和 ASTAR 相位/方向映射，被提议用于研究纳米级的文化遗产材料。在这项工作中，我们展示了 TEM 中的电子晶体学如何帮助确定来自不同历史时期的文化遗产材料中各种颜料的精确结构信息和相位/取向分布，如希腊双肩星、罗马玻璃镶嵌和前西班牙玛雅壁画。