Lab Created Diamonds

Posted on 2009-11-08, 12:47, by Tim F, under Jewelry.

Over the last century, clever marketing campaigns have created immense desire for diamonds, in preference to all other gem stones for personal use. This demand has inflated the value of natural diamonds and led researchers to investigate new sources of diamonds.

Diamonds are no longer only products of the Earth. It is now possible for scientists to make their own diamonds, using current technology. This article will briefly discuss how diamonds are made, be they artificial or natural. Regardless of who makes them, diamonds are generally created the same way: with lots of heat, and lots and lots of pressure. The amount of pressure needed to make a diamond is immense, but this is why diamonds are so incredibly hard. The Earth does it by stacking layer upon layer of sediment, rocks, and other natural materials on top of carbon deposits, eventually creating tons of pressure. Man accomplishes the same thing with the use of machines.

Added to this pressure is incredibly intense heat. The heat required to create a diamond is so intense that it could easily melt steel. Magma can produce this type of heat, and is often found deep enough within the Earth to come in contact with pressurized carbon. Humans can also create this type of heat by burning certain chemicals within a contained environment. The lab created diamonds made with this method, called the High Pressure High Temperature or HPHT method, can be very high quality and hard to distinguish from the real thing.

There is also one other way that humans create diamonds, besides mimicking nature. These are often referred to as diamond simulants, but are very similar in most ways. The biggest difference is the internal physical structure of the diamond although this can only be revealed with the use of lab equipment. Using a process called Chemical Vapor Deposition, it is possible to "grow" diamonds through a complex chemical reaction. Thus, although the end product has many of the same qualities, it has a completely different chemical composition. However, these created diamonds not only look the same, but they also retain all the needed qualities for diamonds in industrial and technological applications, such as drills and electronics.

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