The diamond mining industry is a controversial one. Making sure that the stone on your hand is pure is a much talked-about subject. Inside Mining speaks to Baron Baretzky.

There are two types of fingerprinting for diamonds: geographical plasma fingerprinting, as well as organic fingerprinting and identification. Geographical identification, or the identification of the specific geographical place where a gem is mined, is not precise and is some time away from perfection.

The second form of fingerprinting deals with identification, authentication and the possible treatment of diamonds and gems. The method used, which is based on Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, is precise. Wikipedia.com states: “As with all spectroscopic techniques, [FTIR spectroscopy] can be used to identify compounds and investigate sample composition. It is a common laboratory instrument that is used today. A diamond’s specific chemical make-up or the all tropes of carbon contain special properties that make it identifiable with infrared techniques.”
Until a few years ago, these methods were in the early stages of evolution and were mostly used in medical and forensic laboratories by entities such as the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and other crime investigation units that could afford this expensive technology.

DiaLab focuses on the second form of fingerprinting systems, mentioned above, for diamonds and organic materials, which have been in place for some time. DiaLab has recently taken these a step further by bridging the divide. Although the term DNA refers to an organic structure made up of a large molecule, DiaLab did not use the term as a description.
DNA was largely used as a layman’s term so that readers are able to understand the concept of fingerprinting. If one used the terminology of the carbon make-up of a diamond cubic, which is in the Fd3m space group and follows the face-centred cubic bravais lattice, then few people would understand what was being said. Both systems deal with a chemical compound make-up of the specimens.

It is true that a number of methods can link a diamond and its certificates, such as a laser inscription on a diamond, but the inscription can be polished off in minutes, and the same diamond or gem can be sent to the same laboratory for recertification. This is not possible with the fingerprint identification systems as the FTIR spectrum only belongs to a particular diamond’s carbon fingerprint. This is the technology DiaLab is currently pioneering. With DiaLab’s systems, we can identify a single diamond out of thousands, and matching the electronic print of the diamond carbon fingerprint to a certificate will make it impossible to fake the certification of diamonds.
There are three types of synthetics: CVD, HPHT (which can be synthetic or chemically treated to enhance value or appearance), and plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition, or PECVD, synthetic diamonds, which are well known in the industry.

The third type is grown from a seed crystal and is not necessarily of type II classification origin but also of type 1Aa-B lattice that will pass 415.2 nm N3 ZPL identification and thus pass as a natural diamond on most instruments used by laboratories today.

The original lattice of this synthetic is of natural origin, which makes it nearly impossible to detect since the natural seed crystal would pass any 415.2 nm N3 ZPL test. Most laboratories uses instruments for Diamond testing such as the DiamondSure that only tests for the 415.2 nm N3 ZPL, so any diamond that shows 415.2 will pass as a natural diamond.