A novelty for cultural heritage material analysis: Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) 3D electron diffraction tomography applied to Roman glass tesserae

N. Zacharias , F. Karavassili (1) , P. Das (2) , A. Nicolopoulos , A. Galanis , E. Rauch (3) , R. Arenal (4) , J. Portillo (5) , J. Roque (6, 7) , J. Casablanca , I. Margiolaki (1)

1 University of Patras
2 TASC national laboratory
3 SIMaP - Science et Ingénierie des Matériaux et Procédés
4 Laboratorio de Microscopías Avanzadas
5 NanoMEGAS, Brussels
6 LTM - Laboratoire des technologies de la microélectronique
7 CEA-LETI - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives - Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Information

We present a novel electron diffraction technique (Automated precession 3D diffraction tomography - ADT) based on a Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) to precisely determine unit cell parameters, Space Group symmetry and atomic structure of various pigment/opacifier crystallites of submicron dimensions and commonly present in colored Roman glass tesserae. Such technique can operate at nanometer scale and it is possible to distinguish even between mineralogical phases of similar/same chemical composition, but different crystal structures. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Mots clés: Electron diffraction tomography; Precession electron diffraction; Electron crystallography; TEM; Glass tesserae; Opacifiers

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]

N. Zacharias, F. Karavassili, P. Das, A. Nicolopoulos, A. Galanis, et al.. A novelty for cultural heritage material analysis: Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) 3D electron diffraction tomography applied to Roman glass tesserae. Microchemical Journal, 2018, 138, pp.19-25. ⟨10.1016/j.microc.2017.12.023⟩. ⟨hal-02067844⟩