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Harriet Kelsall
16th July 2007 11:12

Why do Diamonds Sparkle More than Other Gemstones?

 

When buying an engagement ring, many of my customers ask me why diamonds sparkle so much and have often been confused by other jewellers who have told them that their engagement ring diamond "needs light through the back or sides" in the setting.

For a start, a diamond setting certainly doesn't need light in through the back of the setting... this is where the finger will normally be (DOH), so there won't be any light coming in here anyway. The reason that good jewellers leave stone backs open on engagement rings is to allow the cleaning of the gemstones (because however careful you are, dirt like hand cream will permeate through the setting at the top and we need to be able to get it out again without unsetting the stone... see my article on cleaning diamonds at home).

Why diamonds sparkle so well is about the make-up of this amazing gemstone and this is down to physics basically.

Robert M Hazen geophysicist writes: "If you look closely at a faceted diamond, you can see that it soaks up white light and breaks it apart like a prism, dispersing it into a rainbow of colours. Diamonds sparkle and dance with colored light; each of its dozens of facets produces its own dazzling display. Other natural gemstones disperse white light to some degree, but none comes close to diamond's ability to reveal the rainbow." See the whole excellent article here, it is well worth a read if you are as geeky as me!). In the same article Robert Hazen also says, "Diamonds put the brakes on light like no other known colourless substance. Diamond is crammed with electrons - no substance you have ever seen has atoms more densely packed - so light pokes along at less than 80,000 miles per second. That's more than 100,000 miles per second slower than in air."

Lapidarists cut stones into various exactly defined shapes that we know as "diamond cuts". Many of these, like the princess cut, are very good at showing off the sparkle in a good piece of diamond. The most successful of these for maximising these amazing properties of the diamond is the modern brilliant cut. There is a long but good article which includes brilliant cut diagrams here. The reason this is good is just down to good geometry and when the cut is well proportioned (i.e. not too deep from the top to the point at the bottom, and not too shallow) this maximises the total internal reflection going on within the gemstone... i.e. gets the most sparkle.

Sources:

Harriet Kelsall
 

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  • Harriet Kelsall Jewellery Design, North Barn, Fairclough Hall Farm, Halls Green, Weston, Hertfordshire, SG4 7DP, England
    Phone: +44 (0)1462 790565 Fax: +44 (0)1462 790140 enquiries@hkjewellery.co.uk
  • Harriet Kelsall Jewellery Design, 6/7 Green Street, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, CB2 3JU, England.
    Phone: +44 (0)1223 461333 Fax: +44 (0)1223 365269 cambridge@hkjewellery.co.uk

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