Portable spectroscopy for cultural heritage: applications and practical challenges

Decades of technological advances in instrumental analysis have transformed many techniques from laboratory innovations to customary analytical tools with increasing applicability to the study of cultural heritage objects. In particular, enduring research in the field of miniaturization has given rise to new generations of mobile, portable, and handheld spectrometers that have deeply altered the way in which scientists approach the analysis of materials in artifacts of archaeological, historical, and artistic significance.