LIFprovides information on the chemical identity of materials on the basis of their fluorescence properties. It is a powerful remote analysis tool that has been successfully applied to the real-time diagnosis of cultural artifacts, allowing the observation of features invisible to the naked eye, as pigment composition, biological deterioration and former restorations.

In a typical LIF instrument, an ultraviolet (UV) laser beam irradiates a sample and an optical system measures the fluorescence spectrum that contains information on the target composition. LIF is a fast, remote, non-invasive, sensitive and selective technique.