Swiss Gemmological Institute SSEF is now offering a new testing service that allows automated authentication of melee diamonds between 1.00mm and 0.50mm – the first of its kind in the industry, according to SSEF.

The latest version of SSEF’s Automated Spectral Diamond Inspection (ASDI) device for the high-speed screening of melees, ASDI-500 can screen, detect and extract lab-grown diamonds and simulants among large quantities of round colourless melee diamonds down to 0.50mm in size. 

A successful validation testing has greenlighted the market launch of the testing service in June 2023. ASDI was developed by SSEF with Swiss robotics company Unimec SA a decade ago.

Jean-Pierre Chalain, project manager and director of the Diamond Department at SSEF, said, “ASDI-500 is a next-generation instrument that allows automated diamond authentication, especially in the size segment between 1.00mm and 0.50mm, for which no automated solution existed thus far.”

The device uses a high-precision built-in robot, entirely manufactured by Unimec SA, that picks up diamonds individually and latches onto them while they are in the pavilion-up position. It has a special nozzle designed to ensure the diamonds’ culets are never in direct contact with the robot’s pick-and-place mechanism. This protects the tip of the diamond, or culet, from any damage during the testing procedure.

First introduced in November 2022, ASDI-500 then underwent a validation programme by SSEF and Unimec, entailing the screening of more than 500,000 round diamonds with diameters ranging from 0.50mm up to 3.80mm. The testing batches were doped with both lab-grown diamonds and simulants, all of which were detected and sorted out by ASDI-500, according to SSEF. The device is available from Unimec.