The Role of PIXE and XRF in Heritage Science: The INFN-CHNet LABEC Experience
, Anna Mazzinghi 3,4,*, Mirko Massi 4, Luca Carraresi 3,4, Lisa Castelli 4, Caroline Czelusniak 4, Francesca Giambi 4, Pier Andrea Mandò 3,4, Marco Manetti 4, Chiara Ruberto 3,4, Laura Guidorzi 2, Alessandro Re 1,2, Alessandro Lo Giudice 1,2, Rodrigo Torres 5, Francesco Arneodo 5, Simi Maria Emilia Mangani 6, Silvia Calusi 7 and Francesco Taccetti 4
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript reviews present situation of nuclear techniques used in cultural heritage at the INFN-LABEC, including technological improvements to the PIXE and XRF instruments and their analysis studies on art and archaeological finds. Those developed or developing nuclear analysis techniques have absolutely advantage of elemental composition quantitative analysis and foreseeable possibility of on-site scanning applications. Besides, the author shares the direction of technology development funded by MACHINA project. In my opinion, this article provides the development of cutting-edge technology, which is very enlightening to researchers in related fields and is worthy of publication.
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
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Comments for author File: 
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Reviewer 3 Report
(XRF) techniques developed at the INFN-LABEC laboratory are described. Both techniques are widely used as analytical elemental characterization techniques in heritage science. Both are multi-analytical techniques, non-destructive and non-invasive techniques, while they differ considerably in penetration depths and low atomic number sensitivity. The two methods are comparedvand the advantages and disadvantages are discussed thoroughly. I have some minor remarks, which I list below:
1) In page 2 : The statement “In XRF spectroscopy, due to the radiation matter interaction, it is of the order of a few millimetres [19],…..” should be clarified. It is clear that this depends from the sample’s composition, and e.g it is orders of magnitude smaller in the case metallic samples.
2) In page 3 : “… the measured atomic ratio Pb:Sn:Si approximates to 1:0-25:0-65….”. Confirm that the given values for the atomic ratio are the correct.
3) In page 4: Some details and maybe a relative reference (if exists) for the “spiral scanning mode”. How it is realized, why is preferred relative to line-scan
4) Last paragraph of page 7 : “ … and they can hide X-rays emitted by the sample in spectra, the combination of more tubes with different materials limits this effect”. The overlap between primary and fluorescence photon energies could be resolved by using filters. I suggest that the advantage of using X-ray tubes with different anode materials should be attributed mainly to the spectrometer’s sensitivity optimization and less on the line overlaps.
5) In Figure 7, I suggest the use of power of 10 to present the counts in y-axis.
Author Response
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