Spectroscopic and Microscopic Characterization of Flashed Glasses from Stained Glass Windows
, Marina MartÃnez-Weinbaum 2, Mario Aparicio 1, Laura Maestro-Guijarro 2, Marta Castillejo 2 and Mohamed Oujja 2,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
It is an interesting paper, well documented and written. Associating FESEM-EDS, UV-VIS-IR Spectroscopy, LIBS, and LIF have as result a complex analysis of the flashed glasses and the methodology will be of help for several application domains.
I have a few minor suggestions, please see the attached file.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 comments
It is an interesting paper, well documented and written. Associating FESEM-EDS, UV-VIS-IR Spectroscopy, LIBS, and LIF have as result a complex analysis of the flashed glasses and the methodology will be of help for several application domains.
I have a few minor suggestions, please see the attached file.
We thank the reviewer for his/her positive evaluation of our manuscript.
Point 1: Page 1. Abstract section. Phrase is a bit long. Please revise it, may be split it in two sentences.
Response 1: The phrase has been split in two sentences.
Point 2: Page 3: Please adjust the font in figure1 caption.
Response 2: Done.
Point 3: Page 3: Please recheck the math
Response 3: The fluence value of 8.3 Jcm-2 is correct. For an energy of 2.6 mJ with a circular laser spot with a diameter of 200 µm (giving an area of 3.14 x 0.01x0.01= 3.14 10-4 cm2) the fluence is 2.6 10-3/3.14 10-4 = 8.28 Jcm-2.
Point 4: Page 12: Figure 5. Since the spectra are splitted on 2 pages. I suggest that you add an extra Figure Caption for the previous page also.
Response 4: Extra figure captions have been added for both Figure 5 and Figure 6.
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript is very clear, comprehensive and logically structured. Since it shows the benefit and some drawbacks of different optical methods for characteriszation of flashed glasses from stained-glass windows, it is of relevance to the field. The manuscript is particularly interesting because it introduces Laser-induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) as a modern method for the application of quality attributes and compares it with more conventional optical methods by using a small selection of different glasses. It also shows that such an analysis can be done with portable LIBS equipment. I would have additionally liked the use of Raman spectroscopy in this kind of study due to be more versatile and less expensive than LIBS. Also, the glass peaks in Raman spectra might be very interesting to study the compositional differences. From the presented optical characterization methods, it could be useful for the reader to understand what the detections limits are. It is quite understandable that not all available optical methods can be used for such a study, as this would exceed the scope of the manuscript. I recommend this manuscript for publishing with minor revision. Please see my commends below.
In figure 2, the scale bar should be displayed vertically instead. Furthermore, the description of the figure caption does not clearly indicate that the OM selections are viewed from the side, i.e. the cross section is shown. On the other hand, in Table 1 the caption says clearly that the cross section was studied. Please improve figure 2 accordingly.
In figure 5, the font for labelling of the LIBS peaks is too small. Increasing the font might be possible but perhaps the best way would be to show just the wavelength number with an additional assignment table. Also, the gap between 250 and 300 nm should be explained.
In contrary, in figure 6 the font for the possible chromophore assignments is large. Even though it is very well described in the text, it is not very clear in the figure to distinguish these assigments.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 comments
This manuscript is very clear, comprehensive and logically structured. Since it shows the benefit and some drawbacks of different optical methods for characteriszation of flashed glasses from stained-glass windows, it is of relevance to the field. The manuscript is particularly interesting because it introduces Laser-induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) as a modern method for the application of quality attributes and compares it with more conventional optical methods by using a small selection of different glasses. It also shows that such an analysis can be done with portable LIBS equipment. I would have additionally liked the use of Raman spectroscopy in this kind of study due to be more versatile and less expensive than LIBS. Also, the glass peaks in Raman spectra might be very interesting to study the compositional differences. From the presented optical characterization methods, it could be useful for the reader to understand what the detections limits are. It is quite understandable that not all available optical methods can be used for such a study, as this would exceed the scope of the manuscript. I recommend this manuscript for publishing with minor revision. Please see my commends below.
We thank the reviewer for his/her comments and suggestions and for the positive evaluation of our work.
Point 1: In figure 2, the scale bar should be displayed vertically instead. Furthermore, the description of the figure caption does not clearly indicate that the OM selections are viewed from the side, i.e. the cross section is shown. On the other hand, in Table 1 the caption says clearly that the cross section was studied. Please improve figure 2 accordingly.
Response 1: Figure 2 has been improved according to the reviewer suggestions. A new version of Figure 2 is uploaded. A new figure caption is provided indicating that the images correspond to the cross-section of the samples. Figure 3 has also been improved considering the same comments.
Point 2: In figure 5, the font for labelling of the LIBS peaks is too small. Increasing the font might be possible but perhaps the best way would be to show just the wavelength number with an additional assignment table. Also, the gap between 250 and 300 nm should be explained.
Response 2: The font labeling of LIBS peaks has been increased from size 14 to size 18. The gap at wavelengths between 260 and 270 nm has been intentionally left to avoid the scattered light from the used excitation laser wavelength at 266 nm. This fact has been indicated in the figure caption. A new version of figure 5 has been uploaded in the revised version of the manuscript.
Point 3: In contrary, in figure 6 the font for the possible chromophore assignments is large. Even though it is very well described in the text, it is not very clear in the figure to distinguish these assigments.
Response 3: The font size has been decreased and the possible chromophores assignment is indicated by a horizontal bar on the spectra. A new version of figure 6 has been uploaded in the revised version of the manuscript.
