Some Of The Various Ways To Enhance The Aesthetic Appeal Of Rubies
Rubies are a gemstone that many people love, especially when they are a deep red colour and sparkle with the light. However, it is relatively unknown by most people that the rubies they love so much are not natural, and they have gone through an enhancing process to increase their aesthetic appeal. There are many ways you can enhance a ruby and other types of gemstones, and some of the common ones are listed below so you can educate yourself in rubies if it is a gem that you love.
Heat Treatment
One of the most common forms of ruby enhancements is heat treating them, which brings out the rich and dark colour. Enhancing rubies in this way can also help get rid of some inclusions in them, making them more desirable. The rubies are heated to extreme temperatures, and when the temperature reaches between 1,200 and 1,600 degrees, silk, which is rutile needles, recrystallises and changes its appearance at a microscopic level. These tiny inclusions can then start refracting the light in different ways and making the gem sparkle. If higher temperatures are used to treat these inclusions, they can almost disappear completely.
Filling Fractures In Rubies
You can often find when you look at a natural ruby that it has fractures inside the gem. It is possible to alter these fractures to make them more appealing. You do this by using coloured lead glass, which will fill the void and help increase the clarity of the gem. However, a drawback of this treatment is that it can get damaged if you use sonic cleaning to clean the ruby. You can also use flux and heat the ruby to a high temperature, so the flux fills the void and helps the ruby to repair itself.
Beryllium Diffusion
Beryllium diffusion is another way to enhance rubies, and this method is not popular as it is somewhat controversial. You heat the ruby up to a high temperature and add beryllium to it, drastically changing the appearance of a gemstone, including rubies. Using this method, you can take a white sapphire and transform it into a red ruby, which is one of the reasons this method of enhancing is so controversial.
These are the most common ways of enhancing rubies and are also used on other gemstones, but there are other methods. For more information on the different ways to treat and enhance gems, click here.