Diffusion treating sapphires has created a huge increase in the sales of colored sapphires, unfortunatly many sellers are not disclosing that the stones are diffusion treated.
What is diffusion treatment of sapphires?
The person treating the stone starts with a colorless inexpensive sapphire.
Athin colored skin is grown over top of the stone giving the stone the look of a top quality colored sapphire.
High heat is used during this process and it can also create stress fractures.
How do you identify diffusion treated sapphires?
When viewed under magnification diffusion treated sapphires will have darker color at facete junctions, and also in any fissures.
The girdle of the stone will also appear darker than the facet plains.
The colored skin is only about 1/10th of a millimeter deep so a scratch or gouge will remove parts of the treatment.
Mwthylene iodide will make the color differences very aparent.
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