The use of time of flight neutron diffraction in bronze archaeometallurgy

During the last years several works explored the potentials of neutron diffraction in the non destructive metallurgical characterisation of bronze artefacts. Despite the very interesting results in quantifying elemental and phase contents in binary and ternary alloys, as well as preferred orientation and residual stress distributions, the novel approach is still far from the common archaeometallurgical practice. In order to overcome a rather stationary situation, further insight aimed at enriching the analytical valence of neutron techniques and devising suitable integrations with other non-invasive methods are needed. Here, some recent developments in the use of time of flight neutron diffraction for investigating Middle Italy Iron Age bronze artefacts will be reported. Furthermore, the integration with other techniques and the general application perspective will be discussed.