The laboratory supports our Conservation and restoration and Examination and authentication units, but also performs regular work for external clients, be they private individuals, galleries, insurance companies, public collections or the monument preservation agencies in the Swiss cantons.
Most of these analyses are performed in our own laboratory, but some work is carried out externally in cooperation with other institutions. Depending on the task in hand, the following procedures and equipment are in use:
scanner for X-ray fluorescence and hyperspectral reflectance spectroscopy (XRF-RS); Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (FTIR); Raman microspectroscopy; preparation and light microscopic evaluation of colour sections; Vis, UV and polarisation microscopy (LM); scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with variable pressure (VP-SEM), combined with an energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy system (EDS) for element analysis; 14C radiocarbon analysis