How are laboratory diamonds made?

If you’re starting up your diamond engagement ring analysis in 2022, you will stroll on to a landscape vastly distinctive from even a decade in the past. 

Laboratory grown diamonds have turn into a viable suggestion and in switch alternative for lots of couples all through their look for for the perfect engagement ring, or any wonderful diamond jewellery for that make a difference. 

We’re much from a milieu the place laboratory diamonds dominate the wonderful jewellery globe, but they have a large amount going for them, and we’ll be looking at a lot a lot more of them in the coming years.

Let us examine their origin story, and how this compares to that of mined diamonds. 

Laboratory grown diamonds in a nutshell

Lab-developed diamonds (also referred to as laboratory-manufactured diamonds, lab diamonds, gentleman-created diamonds, cultured diamonds) are as actual as any diamond that has ever been mined from the Earth. 

Laboratory diamonds are built in controlled laboratories that mimic and enormously expedite the purely natural diamond formation process from thousands and thousands of many years to months.  

Employing the similar components as the Earth’s mantle (carbon) this method yields correct and real diamonds with their attribute crystal structure, sparkle, fire and longevity. 

They are 100% serious diamonds. 

How are diamonds designed?

Mom earth has employed the exact recipe for tens of millions of decades:

Normal transpiring carbon + excessive tension + superior warmth =  crystallised carbon (diamond). 

Fashionable science retains that diamonds ended up shaped at the very least hundreds of tens of millions of several years in the past at a depth of up to 150kms below the Earths surface.

Carbon found alone in a limited place in temperatures of up to 1100’C and pressure as higher as 50 000 atmospheres. 

The carbon crystallised into diamonds and was then moved in direction of the earth’s area as a result of volcanic exercise about aeons. 

Very first To The Celebration: Significant Force, Substantial Temperature (HPHT)

The race to create a diamond in a laboratory environment commenced in the early 1940s, but attempts have been disrupted by the war. 

In 1958 researchers at Basic Electric powered took 1st prize by efficiently making a diamond in a controlled ecosystem by crystalising carbon by way of enormous strain and temperature in a chamber.

And in what I believe was a short assembly, GE named the system: “Superior Force, Higher Temperature” (HPHT).

In the HPHT course of action, a tiny diamond (seed) is put in the centre of a chamber crammed with carbon. Employing stress up to 100 000 atmospheres, and temperatures reaching 2000’C celsius, the carbon melts and crystalises around the seed therefore expanding it. 

Making use of this technique, diamonds of a useable dimension can be developed in a couple of shorter months. 

*Diamonds after the HPHT increasing approach. 

Pleasurable Simple fact the existing globe file for the largest lab-developed diamond is a whopping 155cts! By ze Germans, of class. 

And then Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD)

A handful of many years afterwards the CVD process was perfected and made available a 2nd system for crystallising carbon into diamonds in a laboratory. 

A compact seed diamond (generally shaped by HPHT) is placed into a chamber which is crammed with a carbon-loaded gasoline. 

The gas is then ionised into a plasma utilizing technological know-how related to lasers and microwaves. This in essence breaks down the molecular bond of the gas, and when heated to all-around 700’C pure carbon starts off raining down in the chamber, crystalising layer by layer on top rated of the seed diamond. 

Though the CVD system would seem a lot more technologically innovative, the HPHT approach is nonetheless noticed as the very best system to grow gem-high quality diamonds for high-conclusion jewellery. 

Even further Processing into the gems we enjoy and treasure. 

No matter of how the carbon was crystalised, the relaxation of the production cycle is similar. 

First Stage: Planning

Tough diamonds, irrespective of whether mined or lab-established arrive in all shapes and sizes. 

Tough diamonds are 3D scanned and using contemporary imaging systems experts finely establish what the greatest healthy of form and dimension is to the rough product. 

*A Tough diamond getting analysed with a Sarin equipment.

The essential shape is marked by lasers and the diamond is moved on to the next phase of manufacturing. 

Second Action: Slicing and Sharpening.

The rough diamond is then minimize by even stronger robust lasers applying the recommendations marked through arranging. 

After the diamond is lasered into its blueprint, they’re transferred to a diamond cutter who then meticulously finishes and polishes the diamond into its shiny closing state. 

Closing Stage Grading

Once the diamonds are all polished up, they’re independently packed and sent off to impartial diamond grading laboratories. 

Here, gemologists just take fantastic care in grading every single diamond in accordance to its colour, clarity and dimensions.

The recently graded diamonds are repackaged into neat grading certificates indicating all the diamond’s exceptional technical specs and returned to the maker who then distributes them down his income chain.  

The most reliable laboratory for grading mined diamonds is the GIA.

Though the GIA also grades laboratory-developed diamonds, the IGI looks to have taken the guide in this segment. 

IGI certification is by no indicates inferior, but it is materially far more affordable than the GIA route. With laboratory diamonds trading at up to 60% less than mined diamonds, more affordable grading was a excellent healthy.  

In our knowledge, the grades problems by IGI simply maintain up to the GIA criteria. 

Both of those are dependable, consistent, internationally regarded and recognised. 

Same, same?

The line separating laboratory-created diamonds and mined diamonds is paper-thin. 

Aside from how organic is crystalised, the processing is identical. 

The long run is lab-grown diamonds is vibrant. 

It’s definitely well worth hunting into for your aspiration engagement ring. 

If you have any concerns, you can obtain me at [email protected]

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Take Care

Johan Poggenpoel

Co-Founder, Poggenpoel Jewellers

www.poggenpoel.com