CONSTRUCTION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A FIBER OPTIC REFLECTANCE SPECTROMETER IN THE ANALYSIS OF CHEMICAL COMPOSITIONS OF SURFACE LEVEL PIGMENTS AND SOIL SAMPLES IN CONJUCTION WITH X-RAY FLUORESCENCE MEASUREMENTS
Fiber optic reflectance spectroscopy (FORS) is an analytical method used for thenon-destructive chemical composition analysis of touch sensitive samples. It is useful in the fields of mineralogy, and cultural heritage, among others, as it allows for analysis of delicate samples without contact or destruction. FORS probes the electronic structure of materials and provides insights into chemical bonds but does not identify which elements are present. By combining data from a FORS instrument (350 nm – 1050 nm) and specific elemental data collected by portable x-ray fluorescence (pXRF) point measurements, this study hopes to shed light on a multi-technique approach that can reveal a wider range of information regarding the chemical composition of surface pigments and minerals. The results of this study found that the combination of pXRF and FORS does allow for a more complete understanding of chemical composition, though inclusions of trace elements in pXRF data proved to be difficult to discern in the respective reflectance data.