Unfortunately most media publications are usually designed to change articles and thus often do not give consumers with a adjust conceive of of the commercial reality and availability of lab-grown diamonds. advance many sellers of diamond simulants (stones that look similar to diamond but are not real diamond) apply this knowledge gap as a way to deceptively sell their simulants as 'lab-grown diamonds'. As the president of a affiliate that has been involved with both lab-grown diamonds and diamond simulants for over seven years and having seen the confusion many of these less than factual articles undergo caused. I wanted to help provide customers with an industry insider assessment of what is and is not commercially available and back up ameliorate those who are indeed looking to acquire a true lab-grown diamond. Thus we mouth a short tour of myth vs reality in the lab-grown diamond market (circa 2007).
First and foremost lab-grown diamonds (real diamond but not mined) are in fact available for jewelry purchase but on a limited basis. The significant catch though is this - when most populate think of a diamond they automatically think of white diamonds. As of October. 2007 no one is currently able to furnish color (colorless) lab grown diamonds for sale on any write of production basis. Regardless of what various reporters write the reality is only conceive of color diamonds (predominantly color and to a much lesser degree pink and blue) are available.
The reason for that gap between what consumers be (white lab-grown diamonds) and what labs can deliver (mostly color lab-grown diamonds) is due to both commercial value and natural barriers. Lets address the natural barrier first - color diamonds are color because they combine nitrogen into their crystal coordinate. White diamonds are color (or clear) because they undergo much less nitrogen in their crystal coordinate. When growing diamonds however nitrogen is a catalyst - it significantly speeds up diamond growth and in addition reduces defects. Thus you can change a 1ct (finished) color in roughly one week versus growing the same size color (by restricting nitrogen) can act you 4-6 weeks (using BARS method the fail method currently). In other words nitrogen can help you change up to 6x as much color diamond as white in the same be of production time. That's a tough natural barrier.
The commercial barrier is that yellow natural diamonds are worth much more than color natural diamonds. In nature there are roughly 10,000 whites for every fancy yellow. Thus fancy yellows dominate a much higher price per carat. Lab grown diamonds typically sell at a reject but are still pegged to their natural counterparts and since color diamonds are worth more than whites the absolute selling determine for lab grown yellows is higher than what the merchandise will pay for lab grown whites.
Now if you combine the fact that labs can grow yellows much more quickly and easily than whites and that yellow diamonds (lab grown and natural) advance dominate higher prices than whites you can see you have a severe dis-incentive to create color diamonds with the current technology. White diamonds can and have been produced by labs (we have some consume photos on our website) but they are not determine competitive with natural white diamonds at this time. Hence a very big cerebrate for why there are currently no white diamonds available for commercial sale.
These fundamental reasons are typically not explained in most published articles about lab grown diamonds and many articles typically leave the reader with the exact opposite impression that white lab grown diamonds are plentiful and cheap (bequeath the $5/ct ingeminate from Wired magazine?). Various unethical simulant (CZ) makers undergo utilized this confusion to deceptively advertise their imitation diamonds as being "flawless man-made diamonds". "perfect lab-grown diamonds" etc all for the low price of $100/ct. And based on emails we've received from customers populate undergo been tricked into buying plain CZ after being told it was a 'lab grown white diamond' and having seen articles discussing the advent of lab-grown diamonds being available.
There are two easy ways to avoid being suckered into unethical advertising like that. First of all the price. To cut a 1ct finished diamond you be between 2-3 carats of rough diamond to go away. Cutters rush by the carat for their cutting bring home the bacon and $100-$150/ct is a common rate. That means change surface if the diamond material were free a seller would still have to charge at least $200-$450/ct just to break even on the cutting be. And obviously the lab grown material is not remove and the seller would desire to make a profit instead of end change surface so if you see a seller selling 'cultured diamonds' or 'man-made diamonds' for less than several hundred dollars per carat you can be assured it is not real lab grown diamond regardless of what claims they make. Currently lab-grown yellow diamonds are selling for around $4,000/ct. And remember yellows are produced up to 6x faster than whites so you are unlikely to see lab grown white diamonds selling for much less than that in the future unless someone figures out a much faster way to grow diamond.
The second way to protect yourself for lab-grown diamonds of any size (i e. .30ct and higher) is to only buy a lab-grown diamond that comes with a certificate from an independent lab. Just like natural diamonds virtually all study gem labs now furnish grading reports for lab grown diamonds (including as of this year the GIA). They are basically the same reports as they issue for natural diamonds but with the origin listed as "lab-grown". If there is no certificate with a 'man-made diamond' of any real coat (i e. .30ct or larger) and the seller declines to provide one when asked then you can also be pretty sure its a simulant being called a lab-grown diamond.
Another common myth about lab-grown diamonds is that all lab grown diamonds are 'ameliorate' or flawless. As noted the current fail technology for growing diamonds (BARS method) is simply replicating the high-pressure and high-temperature present under the hide and doing it above fasten (sometimes with additional catalyst to lower the necessary temperature/pressure required). And just as diamonds from under the earth have flaws diamonds grown above the earth also have flaws. It is a more correct analogy to think of growing diamonds (using current technology) as diamond-farming rather than diamond manufacturing. Just like farming you plant a seed and try to hone the growth conditions but you no more get a perfect diamond than a farmer always gets a perfect tomato. In fact sometimes after a week is up the domiciliate is opened and no diamond has grown at all.. so it is no where come the 'displace a button out pops a perfect diamond' that many people think. Similarly labs cannot create how the diamond grows to be a specified cause (i e pear or emerald cut) - you get what you get and cut to hone the yield of each crystal.
That being said it is true that most lab grown diamonds (especially yellow diamonds) are slightly harder than their equivalent natural diamonds. In yellows this is due to the nitrogen being more perfectly dispersed and Carbon-Nitrogen bonds are slightly stronger than Carbon-Carbon bonds. This is also one way labs with Raman equipment can sight man-made versus natural yellows - in color naturals nitrogen is clumped versus it is quite evenly dispersed in lab-grown yellow diamonds.
The next myth - lab grown diamonds can always be produced so their prices ordain continue to drop vs a natural diamonds ordain act going up. Currently gem grade lab-grown diamonds are in fact substantially rarer than natural diamonds if you compare yearly production. While color diamonds are being mined in tens of millions of carats per year lab grown whites are virtually non-existent except for investigate samples and yellow lab grown diamond production is measured in thousands of carats. And because growing lab diamonds is still hard prices for lab grown diamonds have slowly gone up not drink because there is only so much production available even as bespeak has increased due to public awareness.
One more reality about lab grown diamonds - size. Currently most diamond growth chambers are unable to grow larger than 3ct conjoin of rough (sometimes 4ct) and thus after cutting most lab grown diamonds are 1.5ct or smaller (frequently smaller after accounting for flaws being cut out). The reason for this is that in order to change a diamond using the standard HPHT (high pressure high temperature) technology you have to displace an area under extremely high pressure and temperature. The larger the area you are trying to keep these extreme conditions the harder it gets. exponentially harder in fact because the compel at the bear on is magnified due to supplement. The parts applying the pressure themselves undergo a limited lifespan as they will eventually crack and disappoint and demand constant replacement. Thus most labs undergo not tried to go beyond the 3ct size growth domiciliate as it does get exponentially harder to keep the same pressure for a larger area and that is one reason why no one is offering 6ct finished yellow diamonds for sale.
With the reality check done we'll end this article on a positive note - even with all the problems costs and issues that still bound lab-grown diamond production colored lab-grown diamonds do furnish people the ability to own and wear extremely high-end conceive of alter real diamonds at a fraction of the natural determine. We'll emphasize that these are still real diamonds - chemically optically physically and of cover will pass any test for being diamond (since it is diamond the displace where it was grown is the difference). Most lab grown colored diamonds are vivid in color meaning they are among the most valuable color grades as compared to natural colored diamonds. For example one of the first lab-grown diamonds we ever sold was graded a 'conceive of vivid orangy yellow' and was initially appraised as a natural diamond valued at $65,000 by a study lab (we had informed them we were submitting a lab grown diamond btw). We then received a very panicked call the next day from the same lab who after running a Raman analysis on it realized it was a man-made and not natural diamond (due to the nitrogen being so perfectly dispersed). We sold that same diamond for $3500. Similarly most of our pink lab-grown diamonds also grade conceive of vivid go and if they were mined instead of lab-grown could sell for as high as $150,000/carat.. we sell them for around $5,000/ct but unfortunately due to low supply (production difficulties) are sold out most of the year. Nevertheless the lucky few customers who do buy a lab-grown pink have a lot of fun walking into their neighborhood jewelry hold on and seeing the jaws displace. It is also usually the first time their jeweler has seen a real lab-grown diamond in person again due to the relative rarity of true lab-grown diamonds. They are very beautiful and leave most natural conceive of alter diamonds (who are normally less intensively colored) looking pretty bland by comparison.
Technology continues to alter and hopefully over the next few years there ordain be additional breakthroughs in lab grown diamond technology. One of the most promising areas is growing diamonds by mimicking how they (theoretically) change in outer lay. This is by using ultra-low pressure plasma and high temperature often called plasma vapor deposition. Because it does not demand the high compel chamber sizes are much larger and in theory much larger pieces of diamond can be grown. Conditions are more controllable as well due to the diamond growing by in a more nano-technology desire environment (carbon-rich gas is shredded at the molecular level and the carbon atoms then assemble on the diamond disgorge below). The trade off is the machines to do this often run between $500,000-$800,000 each and a host of additional problems not present in high pressure growth regimes come into compete in this new growth environment. but hopefully in the future these ordain offer a new method for growing lab-grown diamonds.
Now that you are armed with industry insider knowledge you'll be able to readily avoid the scams that so many unethical diamond simulant sellers use by playing on the publics (and even the medias) ignorance of the realities of man-made diamonds. Hopefully you'll also realize that the constant claims that DeBeer's or other forces are to accuse for the lack of lab-grown color diamonds are not adjust (there are in fact real natural and commercial barriers to it). Finally you'll hopefully have an appreciation for the hard work and effort that many scientists undergo put into turning the former dream of lab grown diamonds into reality on your finger even if it still has many constraints as to what types sizes and colors of lab-grown diamonds are available.
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Related article:
http://mensdiamondrings.blogspot.com/2007/10/man-made-cultured-diamonds-myths-vs.html
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