Study of varnish layers with optical coherence tomography in both visible and infrared domains

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is an attractive technique to study works of art because it allows non-destructive and contactless analysis. In the case of musical instruments, the study of wood finishes could give interesting information as the thicknesses of the layers, the number of layers and the presence of fillers. A time-domain full-field OCT, achieving high resolution, is used in both visible and near infrared ranges to characterize semi-transparent layers containing scattering particles as charged varnish layers. We present OCT measurements on wood varnished with different coatings. We show that the detection of pigment particles is dependent of the spectral range and that both spectral domains allow to reach micrometer-scale spatial resolutions.