Advanced Lab Equipment
The AGTA GTC is one of the best-equipped gemological labs in the entire world. In addition to the standard gemological gear, such as microscopes, refractometers, etc. our facilities include a number of advanced testing units, such as those shown below:
Magna-ir 560 Nicolet FTIR This Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectrophotometer is one of the most important tools in our arsenal. It is useful in helping to separate a number of natural gemstones from their treated counterparts, including various sapphires, emerald and jadeite, to name but a few. It is also of use in identifying some synthetics, including synthetic emerald. |
Renishaw Raman spectrometer The Raman spectrometer is extremely useful in the non-destructive identification of inclusions in gemstones, as well as fingerprinting rare gem materials. It also can be used to identify certain types of fillers used in treated emeralds, along with HPHT treated diamonds. |
Edax DX-95 When we want to non-destructively determine the chemical composition of a gem material, we turn to our x-ray fluorescence unit. It has a variety of uses, including identifying gemstones which have no visible inclusions. Chemistry data is also of great importance in determining the origin of ruby, sapphire and emerald. |
Zeiss MCS-500 UV-VIS Spectrometer This unit is used in helping determine the origins of certain types of gemstones, as well as certain diamonds. It is also extremely valuable in pearl identification. |
Unicam UV 500 Ultraviolet Spectrophotometer This unit allows us to peer into the ultraviolet for useful identifying features. Its main use is in helping to determine the country-of-origin of rubies, sapphires and emeralds. It is also used to determine the origin of color in colored diamonds. |
The AGTA GTC's Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) unit. This is useful for detecting beryllium in corundum. Photo: Riccardo Befi/AGTA GTC |
Faxitron X-Ray unit This x-ray unit is used for separating natural and cultured pearls. |
