Electron beam irradiation of gemstone for color enhancement

Numerous treatment of gemstones has been going on for hundreds of years for enhancing color and clarity of gems devoid of these attributes. Whereas previous practices included fraudulent or otherwise processes to achieve the color enhancement, the ionizing radiation has proven to be a reliable and reproducible technique. Three types of irradiation processes include exposure to gamma radiation, electron beam irradiation and the nuclear power plants. Electron Beam Irradiation of Gemstone is a technique in which a gemstone is exposed to highly ionizing radiation electron beam to knock off electrons to generate color centers culminating in introduction of deeper colors. The color centers may be stable or unstable. Below 9MeV, normally no radioactivity is introduced in the exposed gems. A study was conducted at Electron Beam Irradiation Centre (Alurtron) for gemstone color enhancement by using different kind of precious gemstones obtained from Pakistan. The study shows that EB irradiation not only enhances the color but can also improves the clarity of some type of gemstones. The treated stones included kunzite, tourmaline, topaz, quartz, aquamarine and cultured pearls. Doses ranging from 25 kGy to 200 KGy were employed to assess the influence of doses on color and clarity and to select the optimum doses. The samples used included both the natural and the faceted gemstones. It is concluded that significant revenue generation is associated with the enhancement of the color in clarity of gemstones which are available at very cheap price in the world market.