Cleaning the surfaces of historical artifacts and art with laser technology offers four main advantages:
1. Minimized intrusion
There is no physical contact between the laser device and the surface to be treated. This allows operations to be carried out on extremely fragile or highly changeable surfaces, even before solidification. Secondly, acting directly on the surface, the laser does not require any additional bonding materials or chemical additives.
2. Very high degree of controllability
The peeling off of deteriorated layers can be measured in such a way that a single pulse only involves a thickness of a few micrometers, which allows the repair to reach depths with a very high degree of precision.
3,Selectivity
Laser cleaning utilizes the principle that the different light absorption coefficients of various materials depend on the color of the material. In most cases involving black or very dark colors, the layer of deterioration to be removed absorbs the light completely, allowing the laser removal process to be almost instantaneous. The reverse is also true, the substrate of the material to be preserved, which is usually of a lighter hue, reflects the incident light to a large extent, which restricts or prevents the action of the laser.
4. High precision
The cleaning process involves only the area illuminated by the laser beam, and the surrounding area is not subjected to any mechanical or thermal influences. Moreover, fiber lasers can allow the treatment of surfaces with rather complex structures. The zoomable, hand-held laser head offers a high degree of flexibility in use, while at the same time it can be used to process large surface areas or very small details.
