The greatest effects of a diamond's crystallographic defects fall on its colour and electrical conductivity. Various types of spectroscopy can be used to detect crystallographic defects in diamonds. At present, hundreds of diamond defects have been identified.
Extrinsic Defects
The majority of external defects originate from inclusions of foreign materials in diamonds.Oxygen is considered to be a major impurity in diamond composition.
1. Nitrogen
The impurity most commonly found in diamonds is nitrogen. Nitrogen makes its way into the diamond lattice in the form of a single atom, while molecular nitrogen integrates into the diamond.
2. Boron
A diamond is labelled as type IIb if it contains boron as a substitutional impurity. Diamonds containing boron comprise only one percent of all natural diamonds.
3. Phosphorus
Here, phosphorus serves as a replacement for carbon in the diamond lattice.
4. Hydrogen
Many defects that occur in both natural and synthetic diamond films are often related to hydrogen. . At present, it is unknown whether the origin of these diamonds is from diamond or foreign inclusions.
