Discover the ‘Diamond’s Spectral Constellation’, also called the ‘Spectral Reflection Pattern’. Michael D. Cowing explains why the ‘Spectral Constellation/Reflection Pattern’ is the nexus connecting a diamond cut’s light performance and its illumination and why it is the key to understanding the occurrence of fire in a diamond.
One of his photos of an AGS0 Ideal, hearts and arrows cut diamond. The spectacular fire is due to led spot lighting like that often present in jewelry stores above the diamond cases. The complete understanding of why and how such great fire occurs in the Ideal Cut round brilliant in spot lighting, (which is high contrast illumination), is found in this Gemology Today article “Diamond’s Spectral Constellation/Reflection Pattern”.
‘Fire’ is enabled in gemstones due to dispersion of light into its spectral colors. The greater a gemstone’s property of dispersion the greater is the spectral fanning of light rays into spectral colors. Dispersion of rays occurs upon their entry or exit of a gemstone at an angle to a facet. The greater the angle and the closer to parallel to a facet the greater is the spectral fanning, and the greater the potential for the observation of fire. The discovery demonstrated using the ‘Spectral Reflection Pattern’ is the essential role of ‘illumination contrast’ in the production of diamond’s fire. ‘The occurrence of fire in any facet reflection is dependent upon bright-dark contrast in the illumination at the location in the surrounding being reflected. The greater the bright-dark contrast at that location the more vivid the fire. The Spectral Reflection Pattern not only provides the how and why fire occurs at contrast borders between light and dark, but also the colors of that f ire.
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