Alrosa said its new, non-invasive "nanomarking" method is imprinted inside the atomic structure of the diamond, at its "crystal lattice".

"A nanomark is applied using a laser pulse of a certain wavelength, intensity and duration. This causes nanoregions to form across the entire crystal, which can only be viewed with a scanner created specifically for reading the marks," said Oleg Kovalchuk, PhD (Tech. Sc.), who supervises the project at the Yakutniproalmaz Institute.

The company partnered with Russian Academy of Sciences and the Yakutniproalmaz Institute on the new process.

The mark used is a three-dimensional code that links to the company's Provenance supply chain platform.

Provenance lists a diamond's origin and characteristics, and cut details.

The first time this technology is being used for commercial purposes to trace rough and polished diamonds, said Alrosa.

"With access to the full cycle of manufacturing, we have all the necessary information about our polished diamonds and the rough diamonds from which they were cut",said Sergey Ivanov, CEO of ALROSA. "The laser nanomark technology we have created allows these guarantees to be extended to the diamonds sold by our partners".