ONLNE DIAMOND AND JEWLWRY

Post and his team of researchers concluded that red phosphorescence is not just specific to the Hope Diamond, but indeed a property of all natural blue diamonds. Trace impurities of the element boron give rise to a diamond’s deep blue color. Presumably, the boron interacts with trace amounts of nitrogen to give each diamond its unique phosphorescence behavior. Hoping to see a trend among the diamonds tested, researchers found just the opposite. “The plot just scattered, indicating that each of these diamonds had its own set of these characteristics,” said Post. “That gave us a way of fingerprinting a particular blue diamond.” In addition, the researchers tested synthetic diamonds doped with boron and natural heat-treated blue diamonds. The artificially treated blue diamonds had a completely different phosphorescence spectrum than the natural blue diamonds, which could be useful to gemologists when identifying the real from the fake.