Due to the outstanding properties polycrystalline diamond coatings are used for wear protection on tools and work pieces. Thereby adhesive and abrasive wear as well as spalling of the coating can lead to damage and downtimes of the working machines. By depositing silicon doped multilayer diamond coatings, an indication of the condition of the coatings could be achieved. In this study the behaviour and transmission of the zero-phonon line of silicon vacancy centres is investigated in doped multilayer diamond coatings. The in-situ silicon doped diamond coatings were synthesized in use of an atmospheric laser-based plasma chemical vapour deposition. Photoluminescence measurements were performed with an excitation area of 18 mm(2) and a wavelength of 248 nm. While the photoluminescence of the doped layers conceptually proves suitability as an indicator for the condition of the coating, the undoped diamond layers in the coatings show a high transmissivity to the zero-phonon line for the used parameters.