もっと見たいですか?SSEFリサーチライブラリーで数百の出版物をご覧ください。

We will be in Hong Kong 14 – 24 September offering our on-site testing services, during the upcoming Hong Kong Jewellery and Gem Fairs. Equipped with our mobile instruments and spectrometers, we will be testing coloured gemstones (no diamonds or pearls) at the Asia World Expo (AWE, 18 – 22 Septe

We will be in Bangkok 23 August – 01 September 2023 offering our on-site testing services. The office will be closed on August 26th and 27th. Our office is in the gem trade district at the Silom Road. Equipped with our instruments and spectrometers, we will be testing coloured gemstones. Please co

It is always a pleasure for our team to analyse gemstones which are not so common, or sometimes even very rare, but which may compete in beauty and quality (but often not in hardness) with the most prestigious classic gemstones.

Since about three years, we see at SSEF occasionally chrysoberyl samples of very dark purplish to purplish brown colour, sometimes of quite impressive size (>10 ct). Based on chemical composition, these chrysoberyls show distinct concentration of chromium, but no evident change of colour, thus do no

Jadeite-jade of saturated emerald green colour is highly valued in Asia. It is therefore not astonishing to see in the market either heavily treated jadeite-jade or even imitations made of different minerals which pretend to be fine quality jadeite-jade of “Imperial green” colour.

Copper-bearing tourmaline, also known as Paraiba tourmaline in the trade, may come in a range of colours from blue to green. Similarly, the colour saturation of such copper-bearing tourmalines may vary largely, from saturated and vibrant – also known as “electric” or “neon” – to very lig

A few months ago, a client submitted to SSEF two tourmalines of attractive and matching shape, size and colour, both supposedly being Paraiba tourmalines (Figure 1). Chemical analyses and absorption spectra (UV-Vis-NIR) quickly revealed that their composition and colour cause was much less matching

Last summer, the SSEF received a series of nine small blue cabochons ranging in weight from 0.4 to 1.5 ct. The client assumed that these stones were Paraiba tourmalines from a very early production of the Sao José da Batahla mine in the state of Paraiba in Brazil, as they were safeguarded for seve

The mineral chrysoberyl BeAl2O4 is an attractive gemstone that shows a wide variation of colours mostly ranging from yellow to green and brownish green to dark brown. These colours are mainly due to the presence of iron and sometimes vanadium as chromophore elements inside the crystal lattice struct

From time to time, we receive some oddities for testing, such as the rough “emerald”, reportedly originating from Africa and submitted by a client for testing. Already a quick visual examination made it clear that this was not an emerald. The surface was dominated by conchoidal fractures and cov

Recently, a necklace was submitted to SSEF for coral testing. Already a first microscopic inspection revealed that this item in fact consisted of numerous tiny glass beads, visually imitating coral very well (e.g. corallium rubrum). The most obvious microscopic feature was the presence of air bubble

In 2022, an international research group led by scientists from the Swiss Gemmological Institute SSEF and the University of Zurich’s Institute of Forensic Medicine (IRM) reported a breakthrough in precious coral jewellery traceability, through the use of a novel forensically validated genetic tech