Photothermal approach for cultural heritage research

Over the last few years, there has been an increasing interest in the application of photothermal techniques to the investigation of cultural heritage. Thanks to their peculiar ability of depth-resolving the position of subsurface features, these techniques are in fact well suited for a nondestructive analysis of multi-layer structures such as the one typical of artwork. In addition, the recent availability of highly developed instrumentation makes it possible to effectively carry out in situ investigations into different kinds of artwork. Such circumstances have created new opportunities in both theoretical and experimental research whose development is still in progress. In this work, we report an overview of the results that have been obtained on several kinds of artwork and of further developments that can be used to improve the effectiveness of the application of photothermal techniques to this field.