Skip to main content

Diamond characteristics

Hardest material: Diamond is the hardest known natural material on the Mohs scale. Also on the Vickers scale. Diamond's great hardness relative to other materials has been known since antiquity. Diamond hardness depends on its purity, crystalline perfection and orientation: hardness is higher for flawless, pure crystals oriented to the direction. If the diamond is of low impurity then the diamond hardness is reduced but it is very low. We have wide variety of impurities in diamonds which we will discuss in our further topic CLARITY. Therefore it might be possible to scratch some diamonds with other materials, the hardest diamonds can only be scratched by other diamonds and nanocrystalline diamond aggregates. The hardness of diamond contributes to its suitability as a gemstone. If the diamond have low hardness then it is not good for jewellery because it will be scratched by other substances and will effect its sparkle and life. Because it can only be scratched by other diamonds, it maintains its polish extremely well. Unlike many other gems, it is well-suited to daily wear because of its resistance to scratching—perhaps contributing to its popularity as the preferred gem in engagement or wedding rings, which are often worn every day.

    High electrical conductivity: Diamonds are used as semiconductors: some blue diamonds are natural semiconductors, in contrast to most diamonds, which are excellent electrical insulators. The conductivity and blue color originate from boron impurity. Boron substitutes for carbon atoms in the diamond lattice, donating a hole into the valence band

    Graphite vs diamond: Allotropes of carbon. Graphite with 3 and diamond with 4. Here are the crystalline structures of graphite and diamond. Graphite on the left and diamond on the right. Graphite carbon elements are bonded with 3 other carbon elements whereas diamond carbon elements are bonded with 4 other carbon elements. This is the reason why graphite is weakest material and diamond is strongest material



    Refractive index: It describes how fast light travels through the material. For diamond it is 2.412. This index plays a vital role in the diamond. The time taken by light to pass through vaccuum compared to time taken to travel through a material. Refractive index of vaccuum is 1, ice is 1.31, water is 1.333, window glass is 1.52, diamond is 2.42. This index states that the light speed is reduced more than half in diamond. This makes the material diamond to store more and more light and start dispersing it out late. This will eventually make the diamond sparkle because of storing more light inside. Finally excellent crafting of polished diamond will make even more light to stay inside. Finally diamond will look beautiful or amazing

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cut

Diamonds are luxury goods. People are willing to buy them irrespective of high price because it is best suitable for jewelry. Why are diamonds on high demand for jewelry?     Diamonds sparkle better than any other jewelry today. They store light and sparkle. Today it is a luxurious status of having diamonds as necklace, bracelet, rings, etc. Cut plays a vital role in diamonds fire, brilliance and scintillation which we will discuss further. Cut is general terms means craft. Like any other material wood, limestone, etc; diamonds are also crafted. History:     Diamond cutting process has been known since 6th century in Indian subcontinent. In 14th century, diamonds were fashioned for jewelry.  Before 15th century it was cutting natural diamonds with other natural diamonds only. Slowly improvements were made and in 15th  century a tool called scaif was introduced by a Flemish polisher called Lodewyk Van Berquem. This tool is infused with diamond dust and olive...
3 comments
Read more

Clarity

     Diamonds are formed with carbon and few other elements(nitrogen, boron, etc) along with some air, dust, packed inside it. These packed particles are called inclusions. They define the clarity (grade) of the diamond. In simple words, diamonds clarity grade depends on inclusion location, number of inclusions, inclusion color, inclusion shape and reflection. All these factors are considered under 10X magnification and a final grade is decided by the quality checker from the top view. Grades are as below: IF- Internally flawless VVS1- Very very small included 1 VVS2- Very very small included 2 VS1- Very small included 1 VS2- Very small included 2 SI1- Small included 1 SI2- Small included 2 I1- Included 1 I2- Included 2 I3- Included 3     Was it difficult to find the difference between IF, VVS1 and VVS2 clarities? This is how difficult it is to grade the diamonds in these higher grades. So quality checkers will use higher magnification upto 20X or more to find t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Diamond Basic Knowledge

Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. This carbon is a pure carbon. Carbon is not only the chemical element in diamonds but diamonds can also have nitrogen, boron, etc in their bond structure      Diamond has the highest hardness and thermal conductivity of any natural material, properties that are utilized in major industrial applications such as cutting and polishing tools. People often get confused between hardness and strength. Hardness is resistance to scratching or indentation whereas strength is to withstand force. Diamond is hard but not strong. It is impossible to scratch the diamond with any other substance except diamond which is basically hardness. It is easy to break the diamond with many substances which is basically low strength. Thermal conductivity is a measure of its ability to conduct heat. Due to stiff chemical bonds between light carbon atoms, diamond has an incredibly high t...
Post a Comment
Read more
☌