heritage Article Raman Microspectroscopic Imaging of Binder Remnants in Historical Mortars Reveals Processing Conditions 1,2, , 2,3, Thomas Schmid * y and Petra Dariz y 1 BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, Richard-Willstätter-Str. 11, 12489 Berlin, Germany 2 School of Analytical Sciences Adlershof (SALSA), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany;
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[email protected] These authors contributed equally to this work. y Received: 26 April 2019; Accepted: 12 June 2019; Published: 14 June 2019 Abstract: Binder remnants in historical mortars represent a record of the connection between the raw materials that enter the kiln, the process parameters, and the end product of the calcination. Raman microspectroscopy combines high structural sensitivity with micrometre to sub-micrometre spatial resolution and compatibility with conventional thin-sectional samples in an almost unique fashion, making it an interesting complementary extension of the existing methodological arsenal for mortar analysis. Raman spectra are vibrational fingerprints of crystalline and amorphous compounds, and contain marker bands that are specific for minerals and their polymorphic forms. Relative intensities of bands that are related to the same crystalline species change according to crystal orientations,