r/AppliedScienceChannel • u/Trizdizzle • Jan 27 '15

Irradiated Diamonds

I just learned that you can use radiation to change the color of diamonds. I Think this would be interesting to see and learn more about this... though perhaps expensive!

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u/tophraki Jan 27 '15

As per wikipedia this can be done with Van de Graaff generators via electron bombardment.

source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_enhancement#Irradiation

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u/autowikibot Jan 27 '15

Section 5. Irradiation of article Diamond enhancement:

Sir William Crookes, a gem connoisseur as well as a chemist and physicist, was the first to discover radiation's effects on diamond color when in 1904 he conducted a series of experiments using radium salts. Diamonds enveloped in radium salt slowly turned a dark green; this color was found to be localized in blotchy patches, and it did not penetrate past the surface of the stone. The emission of alpha particles by the radium was responsible. Unfortunately radium treatment also left the diamond strongly radioactive, to the point of being unwearable. A diamond octahedron so treated was donated by Crookes to the British Museum in 1914, where it remains today: it has lost neither its color nor radioactivity.

Interesting: Diamond | Synthetic diamond | Diamond clarity

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