Laser cleaning of soiled paper is a challenging task due to the fact that a contamination has to be removed and a fragile organic material has to be preserved. The ejection of particles forms a significant channel for the removal of unwanted surface contaminations and can be exploited for an in-situ monitoring of the cleaning procedure. 532-nm-nanosecond single and multi pulse laser cleaning of artificially soiled Whatman© paper was performed. Particles were registered with a dust monitor. These in-situ experiments were combined with ex-situ investigations of cleaning and substrate damage thresholds by means of light and scanning electron microscopic techniques. The cleaning efficiency measured by a multi-spectral imaging system was compared to the in-situ particle monitoring. Additionally, possible color changes of the paper substrate were evaluated.
Characterization of laser-generated microparticles by means of a dust monitor and SEM imaging
(2006)
Nanosecond laser (1064 nm wavelength) cleaning of artificially soiled paper as a model sample simulating a real-world artwork was performed. During the cleaning process, the ejection of particles was monitored in situ by means of a dust monitor (8 size classes, ranging from 0.3 µm to >2 µm) and ex situ using a mini-cascade impactor (MKI, 5 stages). The cleaning result was analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) considering possible laser-induced damages to the substrate. Size distributions of emitted particles were measured depending on the processing parameters: laser fluence, F, and pulse number per spot, N. High numbers of large (>2 µm) particles were collected by the mini-cascade impactor indicating a gas dynamical liftoff process. Obviously, these particles were not affected by the laser-matter interaction. The different methods (SEM, MKI, and dust monitor) are compared with respect to their usefulness for a proper interpretation of the cleaning results.