Separation of Natural Laboratory-Grown Diamond Using Time-Gated Luminescence Imaging

GEMS & GEMOLOGY SUMMER 2020 The task of identifying a diamond will typically fall to a diamond appraiser, grader, or gemologist while preparing a grading certificate or appraisal. Whether a diamond is natural or lab-grown is a key factor in its market value and is of paramount importance to the gemologist. Many characteristics can be used to distinguish between natural and synthetic dia mond, but the inherent variability in the properties of natural and synthetic diamond can make such a task difficult. A useful and proven characteristic is the emission of luminescence when a diamond is excited by a source of ultraviolet energy. Typically, a gemologist would utilize an ultraviolet lamp with excitation wavelengths of 365 nm (long-wave ultraviolet, LWUV) or 254 nm (short-wave ultraviolet, SWUV), which correspond to the emission lines of a low-pressure mercury-vapor lamp. In this application, “fluorescence” would be observed during ultraviolet excitation, while “phosphorescence” may be observed when the excitation is removed. The De Beers DiamondView instrument (Spear and Welbourn, 1994; Welbourn et al., 1996) was designed to authenticate natural diamonds and synthetic diamonds. It allows a more sophisticated observation to be made by way of a shorter wavelength excitation of <225 nm corresponding to the primary absorption edge and only exciting around 1-micron depth of material, such that observed luminescence