Exploring street art paintings by microspatially offset Raman spectroscopy

Microspatially offset Raman spectroscopy (micro-SORS) is a recently developed analytical technique combining SORS with microscopy. With this method, highly diffusely scattering microlayers such as painted stratigraphies can be noninvasively probed. In this study, we explore micro-SORS for identifying the chemical composition of subsurface layers in real, street art mural paintings as a new nondestructive method for the characterization of their stratigraphy. Two micro-SORS variants, defocusing and full micro-SORS, were tested and compared.