Photos of an ancient Athenian pottery detail, mostly from an X-ray absorption spectroscopy machine

Photos: Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource

Team members Apurva Mehta and Piero Pianetta, co-principal investigators of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) and Stanford University, respectively, helped direct efforts to utilize X-ray absorption spectroscopy (in particular X-ray absorption near edge spectroscopy [XANES]) to elucidate the structural phases of iron materials present in the ceramic slips and determine their speciation.

The results of these studies, together with the scanning transmission electron microscopy studies, provided a more complete picture of the chemistry and microstructure of the gloss layers from which the initial chemistry and firing conditions were inferred.

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