DIAMOND DETAILS
Lab Diamonds Natural Diamonds vs HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
A geologist once told me, “everything not grown on Earth is mined.” The raw materials for nearly everything we use are excavated from the Earth. Whether it is your cell phone, computer, the sheetrock in your house, or the pipes in your walls, these items and countless others are made from materials extracted from the ground. Historically, diamonds are the rarest and most beautiful material that comes from the ground. What makes a diamond so special? For starters, they are the hardest material on Earth and the product of precise scientific processes. Treasured for thousands of years, diamonds are symbols of love and dedication at the forefront of life’s most special moments. Their quality is meticulously graded based on cut, color, clarity, and carat weight—attributes that ensure the “WOW” factor that has mesmerized humans for centuries. We know that a diamond is a diamond, whether lab-grown or natural, so, what’s the difference? Let’s dive into the origins, characteristics, and price points of the world’s most beautiful marvels, and uncover what sets them apart.
the Earth’s mantle, crystallizes to form diamonds that are brought to the surface through volcanic eruptions. This is a gradual process, with the youngest natural diamonds being at least nine hundred million years old. So it goes without saying that these precious gems are a rare feat of nature. In order to create lab diamonds, you must replicate this natural process. There are two methods used to do this, the High Pressure High Temperature method (HPHT) and the Chemical Vapor Deposition method (CVD). HPHT replicates the conditions of the Earth’s mantle by creating a high-pressure, high-temperature environment. By placing a small diamond in carbon and exposing it to temperatures over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and 1.5 million PSI, the diamond “grows”, creating rough that is then cooled, cut and polished to create a beautiful stone. Through this method, a process that takes hundreds of millions of years in the earth takes only a few days. CVD is a more modern method that differs from HPHT by replicating how diamonds are made in nebulae in outer space. A small micro-diamond is placed in a vacuum chamber filled with carbon gas and heated to 1500 degrees Fahrenheit, causing the gas to become plasma and releasing carbon pieces that surround the seed diamond, forming lab rough. This method takes a few weeks to several months, but allows the most control
How are Lab-Grown and Natural Diamonds Made?
Did you know that the oldest natural diamonds are more than three billion years old!? Diamonds are made of carbon, which, when under intense heat and pressure in
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