DiamondView

DiamondView is a proprietary shortwave UV imaging instrument developed by De Beers Group and used by GIA, IGI, AGS Laboratories (pre-2022), and other major diamond grading labs to separate natural diamond from CVD and HPHT lab-grown diamond. The instrument exposes the stone to deep ultraviolet light (around 220 nm — well below the longwave UV used for fluorescence grading) and photographs the resulting fluorescence patterns at high resolution.

The diagnostic principle is that natural and lab-grown diamonds fluoresce differently under shortwave UV because of differences in their crystal growth history. Natural Type Ia diamond (the dominant natural type) shows blue fluorescence under DiamondView, often with visible growth patterns reflecting natural crystal growth over geological time — concentric zoning, irregular sector boundaries, "wavy" growth lines. The patterns are consistent with the long-duration, low-temperature crystal growth conditions of mantle-derived natural diamond.

CVD lab-grown stones fluoresce differently. The typical CVD pattern under DiamondView is orange or red fluorescence, often with characteristic horizontal growth lines reflecting the layer-by-layer CVD synthesis process. The horizontal lines are visible because CVD growth proceeds along the [100] crystallographic direction one layer at a time, leaving slight optical density variations between layers that the shortwave UV reveals.

HPHT lab-grown stones show their own characteristic patterns. HPHT growth under high pressure produces octahedral or cuboctahedral growth sectors visible as distinct geometric zones under DiamondView, often with blue or green fluorescence depending on the dopant chemistry used in synthesis. The patterns are different from both natural and CVD and are equally diagnostic.

The DiamondView determination is reliable across the natural and lab-grown grading workflow. A grader inspecting a stone under DiamondView can usually determine the origin (natural, CVD, or HPHT) within seconds; the high-resolution image captures the growth pattern in enough detail to support the call. When the DiamondView pattern is ambiguous (rare in modern stones), the lab follows up with FTIR spectroscopy and other analytical techniques to confirm.

The instrument is commercially available — De Beers sells DiamondView units to qualified labs and major diamond dealers — but is not standard retail equipment. Independent verification of lab-grown vs natural origin requires either submission to a major lab (GIA, IGI, AGS supplement on a GIA report) or access to a dealer with a DiamondView and the trained gemologist to interpret it.

For buyers, the relevant fact is that DiamondView-based origin determination on a major lab report is reliable and not subject to the disputes that older identification techniques sometimes produced. A modern GIA or IGI report stating "natural" or "laboratory-grown" reflects DiamondView-confirmed origin and is the credential the market prices accordingly.