A Brief History of Lab Grown Diamonds
Introduction
If you have decided to have a look at this blog post, chances are that you have heard and are intruiged about lab grown diamonds. If so, you have come to the right place. Take this blog as a conversation about lab grown diamonds and nothing more.
Eureka!
Let us start from the beginning. You see, lab grown diamonds are actually not a new thing. They have been around for over 50 years. Scientists concluded that the conditions deep within the Earth’s crust and mantle (which forms diamonds) can be replicated inside laboratories. These conditions can be adjusted and monitered in a consistent and a predictable way that allowed us to imagine a world where humans possess the ability to produce distinct rocks that could only be made and found in nature prior to this discovery. So the adventure began. The first batch of man-made diamonds was produced by General Electric (GE) in 1954. This was a huge milestone, as it was the first time humans had evidence that making diamonds in a lab was possible. Now, the only way to go was forward.
The first batch of man-made diamonds was very small. The individual diamonds themselves were really tiny - like almost impossible to see with the naked eye. Although small, the diamonds had similar properties to the ones that were produced in nature. This meant that they were the hardest material on earth, highly conductive and made from a carbon - carbon tetrahedron lattice. These diamonds were impure, so it was unlikely that they could be used for the purpose of adourning jewellery back then. Nonetheless, they still had a bright future ahead of themselves (pun intended).
These eariliest diamonds were employed for industrial purposes instead. Industrial diamonds are used in procsses that require a high level of abbrasion and hardness, like cutting and sanding. Since the discovery and manufactuing of these diamonds, tools that use them became significanly more economical and abundant. Lab grown diamonds paved the way to make our industries more efficient and accelerated growth.
The Birth of Lab Grown Diamonds
As technologies were improving, new ways to manufacture diamonds were also being discovered. Scientists were finally able to make a gem quality diamond in the 1970s. These diamonds were not only bigger, but the quality also improved significantly enough to categories them with the classic 4Cs (This will be a topic for another blogpost) Carat, Colour, Clarity and Cut. These diamonds were manufactured using a process called HPHT or High Pressure and High Temperature.
The proccess involved using chambers which built tremendous heat and pressure within it. Scientist, would place a very thin sliver of diamond called a diamond seed in the chamber which was filled with a mixutre of molten metals and carbon. The immense heat and pressure with the metals made the carbon to deposit on top of the diamond seed, literally growing it. The diamond seed will turn into a diamond rough, ready for further processing.
The rough diamond was then cut to yield the hight carat weight, polished and then sold to be put in pieces of jewellery. This was revolutionary. Being physically, optically and chemically alike there was almost no way to tell a mined diamond and lab grown diamond apart. Despite this major leap, gem quality lab grown diamonds still had no effect on the industry as the cost to manufacture such diamonds was too high to compete with mined diamonds. Moreover, diamonds made using the HPHT method had impurities that are not found in natural diamonds. The molten metal used in the chamber to make diamonds would slip between the impurities within the growing diamond. This gave a metalic look to inclusions within the stone. These inclusions can still be found in diamonds made with HPHT today. That is the reason why most HPHT diamonds today are used for industrial purposes or gem diamonds that have a very small size.
A New Generation of Diamonds
In comes a new process to cultivate diamonds. Carbon Vapour Deposition or CVD (CVD is a term commonly used in India for Lab Grown Diamonds) is a facsinating method which involves high pressure and high temperature just like HPHT but uses considerably less resources and produces the finest quality of diamonds ever, period. So how does this method work? As it turns out, diamonds have a range of different pressures and temperatures in which it can be formed. CVD uses a process which requires the lowest stable amount of pressure and tempreature (significantly lower than natural and HPHT diamonds) to make a diamond which also has a big impact on cost and resources used.
This process involves a diamond seed which is placed inside a chamber filled with a gas made with a mixture of carbon and hydrogen (commonly methane). The gas is then ionised within the chamber under high heat and pressure which splits the molcule into atoms of carbon and hydrogen. The carbon atoms settle down and despoits on top of the diamond seed atom by atom and the seed grows into a diamond rough. Because there are no foreign contaminants invlolved (like molten metal used in HPHT), CVD produces the highest quality of diamonds which are categorised as “Type 2-A”.
For a diamond to be categorised as Type 2-A, it is impreritive that the diamond must have a chemical structure which consists only of carbon atoms (nitrogen and boron within the diamond lattice are considered to be impurities). Type 2-A diamonds are highly sought after in the jewellery industry and are priced in the most expensive categories. Type 2-A diamonds are also found in nature but they are extremely rare (1% - 2% of natural diamonds), whereas 100% of diamonds made using CVD are categorised as Type 2-A. Additionally, because of a pure carbon structure, Type 2-A diamonds are usually 5 times more durable than general diamonds.
Present Day
It was the CVD diamond which brought Lab Grown Diamonds to the spotlight because it was and is virtually impossible to tell a difference between a lab grown diamond and a mined diamond. Improvements in technology has reduced the cost of manufacturing these diamonds to a degree which makes them highly competitive (a consumer will pay 1/3rd of the price of a similar mined diamond) and the environmental and ethical benefits over a mined diamond is astronomical (let us just leave it at that for now).
With technology bound to improve, there is a possibility when Lab Grown Diamonds will reverse environmental harm by processes capable of capturing carbon straight from the air to make diamonds. For now, it is clear that lab grown diamonds have become the biggest disruptor of the traditionl jewellery industry. Major players in the industry like De Beers have started to sell lab grown diamonds under a new brand called ‘Lightbox’ and Pandora recently announced that it will only replace all existing diamond jewellery with Lab Grown Diamonds to promote sustainablity and its ethics. On the flip side, businesses who have a negative opinion about lab grown diamonds have collectively started a new campaign against lab grown diamonds called ‘Natural Diamonds Only'.
Conclusion
Personally, I believe Lab Grown Diamonds are a step in the right direction for this industry and if given space, it has the potential to capture a larger piece of the market while co-existing with mined diamonds. But, only time will tell what is to come next.
I know that this has been long blog post, but if you have made it this far, I hope you learned something and enjoyed reading this post. Please feel free to let me know about your opinions of Lab Grown Diamonds via our contact page and if you’d like to browse and purchase lab grown diamond jewellery, you can do so here.