Russian scientists invent 'painless' diamond marking

Scientists of the Troitsk Institute of Super-hard and New Carbon Materials /the Moscow region/ elaborated unique marking of jewels, a laser mark which can be seen at 500 times magnification, scientific secretary of the institute Rustem Bagramov said on Monday.

"The mark is put on the diamond's facet to preserve the quality and price of the jewel," he noted. "The main thing is to select the correct emissive power, otherwise, the letters will blacken and the diamond will turn into graphite," Bagramov added. The new marking method fundamentally differs from the existing practice when the mark was put on the facet and was artfully hidden by diamond-cutting. "However, this marking reduced the price of a separate diamond," Bagramov stressed.

In addition, the know-how of Troitsk scientists will help to block the access to the market of illegal jewels. "Russian jewellers will have a chance to present products of the most immaculate origin in the world market," the scientist noted.

In 2004 the unique laser diamond marking set costing several hundred thousand dollars underwent the state examination and is already used by one of Russia's large jewellery plants.