Coupling diffraction and tomography to shed light on the formation of sulphide inclusions in natural diamonds

Being pristine samples from depths that we cannot reach, mineral inclusions in natural diamond have attracted much interest for their potential to shed light on the composition of the Earth interior and the process of diamond formation. Sulphide inclusions are very common and have been studied to understand the occurrence of sulphur and chalcophile elements in the mantle. Sulphide inclusions are still studied mostly ex situ, employing destructive techniques that necessarily cause the loss of information regarding the relationship between the host and the inclusion, and often risk to provide only a partial sampling of the inclusions. Thus, we propose to couple diffraction and tomography to characterize the inclusions without breaking the diamond host. This approach will allow us to identify the phases entrapped in the inclusions, evaluate their morphology and orientation, to get insight into the growth environment and on the time of formation of host-inclusion pair.