Treated Diamonds

What Is a Treated Diamond?

A treated diamond is a diamond that has been altered to make its appearance more alluring, appealing, and pleasing. There are basically two types of treated diamonds, synthetic and natural.

Treated Synthetic Diamonds

Synthetic and imitation diamonds have been created in a lab, not formed naturally over hundreds of years. Synthetic diamonds are created through the use of pressure and high temperature and their affects on carbon. In labs which excel in creating these imitation diamonds, their treatment is so precise that it can be difficult to determine the difference between a synthetic diamond and a real one. Special equipment can be used to detect the age of the growth lines located within the diamond. The growth lines of natural diamonds are significantly older than those in a synthetic diamond.

Treated Natural Diamonds

Natural diamonds that have been treated incur the treatment to enhance their quality and, hopefully, increase their value. This can be done by changing the color of a diamond and filling the cracks in a diamond.

Techniques for Treating Diamonds

There are basically two main treatments for enhancing the quality and value of a diamond, and these include changing its color and filling its cracks to hide Diamond Flaws and Inclusions.

Color Enhancing or Changing

Treatments can enhance colors.

To enhance or change colored diamonds, several techniques can be used.

1. HPHT-This is the process of combining high pressure with high temperature. This technique may make a diamond more colorless, or it may create a pink, brown, yellow or blue diamond. The resulting color will rely a lot on the original state of the diamond.
2. Heat Treatment-When black diamonds are desired, they can be produced by taking a lower quality diamond and exposing it to very high temperatures for a period of time.
3. Irradiation-Black, green, and blue diamonds can be created by exposing the diamond to radiation.
4. Irradiation and Heat Treatment Combined-First, the diamond is treated through radiation, and then it is exposed to high temperatures. Diamonds which are purple, pink, blue, yellow, and brown can be created in this manner.
5. Coating-This practice isn't as commonly used today, but it involves the coating of the stone to improve its appearance.

Crack Filling

This technique was invented in 1982 by an Israeli diamond cutter. Molten glass is inserted into the small cracks of diamonds, and this can improve the diamond's clarity. This will typically only work, however, on a diamond that has small cracks. At times, bromine instead of molten glass is used to fill the cracks. While this may be a less expensive process, it may also cause the stone to discolor after a period of exposure to the sun. Sometimes, a laser is also used to inject acid into the cracks to bleach them.

Jewelry Disclosure

Before you purchase any diamond, be sure to ask the jeweler if it has been treated. If a diamond is sold as untreated, then you should be issued a certificate verifying this fact. If you are intentionally buy treated diamonds, you should ask the jeweler to write down the specific details of the treatment, any necessary care that should be given to the stones, and any type of guarantee the company offers, such as repairing a treatment that has become damaged. Finally, it is always a good idea to take the diamond you are purchasing to an independent appraiser. Be sure you have an agreement from the seller that you can return the diamond for a refund if the appraisal doesn't satisfy you.