Coated bronze cleaning by Nd:YAG lasers

摘要

In the present work we investigated in a general way the laser cleaning of coated bronzes by Q-switched Nd:YAG lasers. In particular, the cleaning problems of tinned, silvered and gilded bronzes were theoretically and experimentally analyzed. Besides the laser fluence, the most critical irradiation parameter resulted to be the pulse duration. We demonstrated the advantage to employ specific Q-switching laser sources providing pulse duration in the range of tens of nanoseconds. The optimized laser ablation conditions were successfully experimented in laser cleaning tests on original ancient objects.