Writing On Diamonds

In the film, after James had found the diamonds, he looks at them very carefully under a microscope. He sees that the name Gustav Graves is inscribed on them in tiny letters. I checked this out and in fact this can be done. It is a technique called ion beam writing. Ions are very tiny charged particles. When fired at a surface of diamond they convert the diamond into graphite in patterns or writing only 1/40th of the thickness of a human hair. Graphite is gray in color and so contrasts against the transparent diamond. Even tiny diamond crystals can be written on. Some companies inscribe each diamond coming out of a mine so it can be identified at a later stage as coming from that particular mine. Wouldn't you think this would take a lot of time and effort to write on each one? Well, there are now special machines that can automatically engrave each crystal in less than a second. When diamonds come out of the ground they are rough, they have a crystalline shape but they are scratched and have rough surfaces. To make them sparkling and beautiful like the ones we see in rings, and necklaces, they have to be cut and polished. The inscribing technique can also be used on cut and polished diamonds, the name of the jeweler or the company supplying the diamond to the jeweler can be put on them.