2 CONCLUSIONS

Numerous research groups have already benefited from the advantages of synchrotron radiation when used with conventional spectroscopic techniques such as x-ray diffraction (XRD) and x-ray fluorescence (XRF) for the analysis of historical materials (Salvad� et al. 2002; Veiga and Figueiredo 2002). The relatively recent interest in and development of IRSR microscopy beamlines at synchrotron facilities around the world heralds new opportunities for improvements in IR microscopy research at the arts-science interface. The low cost, proximity, and cutting-edge instrumentation of these facilities, once widely publicized, will likely prove irresistible to conservation and archaeological scientists faced with increasingly demanding scientific problems and limited budgets.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Dr. G. Lawrence Carr is recognized for providing an instrument schematic, a modified version of which forms figure 1, and for introducing the author to IRSR microscopy. Dr. Gwyn Williams is acknowledged for his original calculations of the theoretical brightness graphs shown in figure 2. The author's work was supported by the Laboratory-Directed Research and Development program at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS). The NSLS is a user facility open to all qualified researchers and is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-AC02-98-CH10886. Information can be found at http://nslsweb.nsls.bnl.gov/infrared, and interested parties should contact Dr. G. Lawrence Carr (carr@bnl.gov) or Dr. Lisa Miller (lmiller@bnl.gov) for additional information.