Types of the Most Commonly Seen Fake Diamond

Diamonds are noble and luxurious accessories; jewelry inlaid with natural diamond is the most high-ranking category. However, diamond s are expensive for their scarce, especially those larger ones. Ordinary people cannot even think about affording them because of their high price, thus the atmosphere that cheap gems, artificial stones, and even glass are used to falsify diamond is intensified secretly or openly, fake diamond business humps increasingly. According some authorized research and statistic, a total of 13 species of fake diamonds are reported, and about 7 kinds are presented here: 1. Glass: It is very easy to distinguish fake diamond made of glass because of its low refractive characteristics whose flashing lights are less sparking than real diamond, people with some experience can discern at a glance. In addition, the method of dipping the diamond into a bow of clear water can make sense, for the dark outline of real diamond can be distinguished while the fake one cannot.2. Synthetic Spinel: the difference between it and the diamond is the lack of flashing colored lights, when immersed in diiodomethane, its outline are vague as well, and the real diamond enjoys a very clear outline.3. Crystal and Topaz: The two kinds are transparent natural mineral crystals, once they are polished carefully, they would look like diamond, but both of them are lack of flashing colored lights. What’s more, they are “non- homogeneous body” while the diamonds are homogeneous, it is easy to distinguish the real and the fake when using polarimeter.4. Synthetic Sapphire: clear transparent synthetic sapphire can also be used as a substitute for diamond. It would disappear when dipping into diiodomethane, while the edges of the diamond are dark enough to distinguish.5. Zircon: It is the best alternation of diamond before the emergency of the man-made cubic zirconium. Zircon has a strong birefringence, i.e., it has refractive indexes, and there exist a larger difference between these two indexes, which generates a special optical phenomenon- when observed with a magnifying glass, an obvious double shadow of the bottom face and ridge of a good pondered zircon facet gems can be distinguished. For the reason that diamond is homogeneous body, double shadow phenomenon will be impossible absolutely.6. Synthetic Rutile: Rutile is a common natural minerals, its composition is titanium dioxide. Due to its refractive index (2.61-2.90) is even higher than diamond (2.42), the pondered gems would have bright and dazzling flash which would appears as a rainbow-like characteristic. Unfortunately, natural rutile is almost opaque entirely, that’s why the American lead company firstly produced synthetic rutile in 1947. The colorless and the transparent are used as the substitute for diamond or its counterfeit ones which are often referred as “colored diamond”, for their colorful appearance are more vivid than real diamonds. But due to the strong refractive index of  the rutile, an obvious double shadow of the bottom ridge seen from the top surface can be get easily as zircon, so it is easy to distinct the rutile from diamond.