Only about 25% to 35% of diamonds exhibit some degree of fluorescence in reaction to long-wave UV light. More than 95% of these diamonds fluoresce blue. A rare few fluoresce other colors such as yellow or green.
Ultraviolet Light: About 30% of diamonds will glow blue under ultraviolet lights such as black light. Fake diamonds, on the other hand, will glow other colors or not at all.
A diamond will become fluorescent if there are traces of the mineral boron present in the earth during the crystallization process. Diamonds can fluoresce in a variety of colours – blue, yellow, green, orange and white – but blue is the most common.
When you place a real diamond underneath an ultraviolet light, the stone with fluorescence in it will turn blue. But it's important to know that this will only happen with about one-third of all diamonds. A fake diamond, on the other hand, will almost never look blue under a black or UV light.
(Fluorescence is a type of glow that occurs almost immediately after exposure to UV light). In most cases, diamonds fluoresce blue. This cancels out the slightly yellowish color in most diamonds, resulting in a whiter appearance in sunlight.
Once your black light is turned on, hold the stone under the UV light. Most diamonds will have a blue-colored glow, but if you see the slight green or yellow fluorescence instead, you'll need to seek the opinion of a professional jeweler as this may mean your stone is not genuine.
As straightforward as it sounds, fill a glass of water at home to roughly three-quarters full. Separate the stone so that it is loose, and drop it into the water. Diamonds are highly dense and a genuine gem will sink to the bottom – every time. If it hovers to the surface or only partially sinks, then it is a replica.
This water test is easy if you have a loose diamond: Get a glass and fill it with water (it doesn't matter what type of water you use). Drop the diamond into the glass of water. Due to the high density of diamonds, when dropped into the water a real diamond will sink.
The way that diamonds reflect light is unique: the inside of a real diamond should sparkle gray and white while the outside should reflect a rainbow of colors onto other surfaces. A fake diamond, on the other hand, will have rainbow colors that you can see inside the diamond as well.
Fluorescence is caused by the presence of nitrogen as a trace element in your diamond. Three nitrogen atoms in lattice position in the crystal structure will commonly cause blue fluorescence. Sometimes, the blue is strong and sometimes the blue is faint.
Fluorite typically glows a blue-violet color under shortwave and longwave light. Some specimens are known to glow a cream or white color. Many specimens do not fluoresce. Fluorescence in fluorite is thought to be caused by the presence of yttrium, europium, samarium [2] or organic material as activators.
Blue diamonds, also known as type IIb diamonds, derive their color from minute quantities of boron. The study reveals that blue diamonds originate from depths reaching 410 miles (660 km) or more into the Earth's lower mantle, where boron is scarce.
Around 35% of diamonds grown naturally have this component in them, and 95% of them glow a bluish color when exposed to a black light. The other 5% may glow in a variety of other colors, including red, yellow, white, green, and orange.
Diamonds glow in black lighting due to a phenomenon called fluorescence and roughly 35% of natural diamonds exhibit some degree of this effect. In nature, the presence of certain chemical impurities within the diamond's composition triggers this glowing effect in the presence of an ultraviolet light source.
In cut stones, cubic zirconia tends to have dull, rounded edges, while diamonds' facets stay sharp. Diamonds rarely show polish marks, but if they do, they will be in different directions on different facets. On the other hand, cubic zirconia will show polishing marks in the same direction on adjoining facets.
CARLSBAD, Calif. – Feb. 27, 2013 – Owners of Android phones and tablets like the Kindle Fire and Samsung Galaxy can now benefit from GIA's (Gemological Institute of America) free interactive diamond app for consumers and retailers, available in both English and Simplified Chinese.
Perform a scratch test. Scrape your gem against corundum and if it makes a scratch, you've got a real diamond on your hands. Diamonds have a density of 3.5 - 3.53 g/cm3, which you can test by dividing the weight of the stone by the weight of the stone suspended in water. Or, take your gem into a professional.
You will see a glow in 30% of diamonds under UV light. 99% of the time, the glow is blue, but on rare occasions, diamonds glow white, yellow, green, or even red in color.
Diamond fluorescence refers to the intensity of a colored glow (usually blue) that is visible when a diamond is exposed to UV light. In some instances, diamonds with strong fluorescence may look milky and lifeless in daylight, but in most cases, the appearance of a diamond with strong fluorescence is rarely affected.
An ideal cut diamond shows only a few intensely bright flashes in direct sunlight. A diamond that actually looks good in sunlight splits those few flashes up into ten or twenty smaller sparkles.
Minerals are assigned a number between 1 and 10 on the Mohs Hardness Scale to describe how resistant to scratching they are. Diamonds are given the highest number, a 10. There is nothing that can scratch a diamond except another diamond. A mineral like talc, on the other hand, is a 1 on the scale.
Red diamonds are the rarest of the colored diamonds, with only 20-30 existing in the entire world. They get their beautiful red color from a rare process during their formation, which changes the crystal structure of the diamond and causes light to pass through it differently than colorless diamonds.