Hi everyone!
Although we don't carry irradiated diamonds in our inventory, we've had requests for them.
Even though we prefer natural colored diamonds, some people want the treated stones.
We recently got some in for a client- so we can all have a peek together.
This box conatins 15 stones that run the gamut of what's avaialable in smaller sizes irradiated diamonds.

The color is usually sort of surreal.

Huh, interesting. The two yellowy greenies at the bottom of the close-up shot look quite like some little demantoids I have. I really like that color. I see they appear more yellow in the other photos.

Should we call them garnetoid diamonds?

Answering Mikla's questions for David: it's a pair of tweezers (, really) and yes, I have seen irradiated stones used in halo/pave work as well as centre stones. Ebay is chock-full of them.

I thought it was called something else because it has notches to hold the stone and a device which clamps the tool securely around any particular stone at a certain width.  This makes it easy to move the whole works around.   

Don't worry, OMC, we'll oust you yet... 

Hahaha! They seem to have a mind of their own, don't they, OMC! After one near-miss event as you've described, with no other option (ie, gem tweezers), generally I prefer to pick something up with my fingers... that says a lot for my disdain regarding the locking b*stards, because I'm no smooth operator!

Looks like a delicious pinky-red candy... yummm...

The pink seems to be a pretty color in the photos.  I'm curious though, how do they perform against diamonds that aren't treated? 

Actually, I feel that irradiated diamonds tend to sparkle a little less than their un-nuked counterparts.
Especially the darker colors.
If we're talking the sky blue ones, there's still a lot of sparkle.....

Well, if you want enabling, then look at it this way. Diamonds aren't naturally cut and polished either...

Yes it does - in fact natural pure green diamonds are green because they have been irradiated.

I suspect the way the radiation creates colour has to do with it - it basically does that by either creating impurities (such as boron) in the crystal by knocking protons out of nuclei, or knocking whole atoms out of the lattice. If too many colour centres are created this way (and they need to be many, in order to have enough colour for the whole stone; the coloured bit is only skin deep in many cases), then transparency may be affected.

I think the lack of sparkle has to do with the cut and clarity of the stone prior to irradiation.  I was under the impression that the diamonds could not be subjected to heat; if so there would be color loss.

In 1991, a customer wanted a rainbow ring; man! those stones were gorgeous, colorful and sparkling!

I was in charge of the gamma source at the blood center (We nuked units of red blood cells to kill the white blood cells to prevent graft vs-host reactions the in the transfused patients, particularly newborns and those with immunosuppressed systems.)   Of course I was continuing to visit my jeweler friends, and one got the bright idea that I should irradiate diamonds for him. 
First of all we were not licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to nuke diamonds, and secondly, just who did he think was going to handle and store those "hot " diamonds.  I was not getting radiation burns and having my digits amputated bit by bit over the years.  The destruction of one exposure never ends; the fleshy tissue and bones continue to die a slow and painful death!

I had no idea what the procedure was for handling and cooling down irradiated diamonds, and I wasn't going to find out!

Coincidently, just a couple of weeks ago, my local jeweler asked if my FIY with trills was irradiated because the color is so intense. hehehe!...Way to go David.