Perhaps few jobs sound more lucrative than a diamond creator – and yes, an expert can indeed, with the help of technological advancements and laboratory tools, create diamonds. These diamonds have all the properties, characteristics and beauty of their mined counterparts. How exactly are they made, what is the process of growing a diamond in a lab? Let’s find out.
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Diamonds in Nature
To make the process of producing lab grown diamonds make more sense, it is worth briefly exploring the natural occurrence of diamonds in nature.
Diamonds are actually composed of a single element – carbon. You would think, how did diamonds earn the title “hardest mineral on Earth” if they were made of carbon? That is where some natural processes come into place.
The formation of diamonds from carbon requires two basic conditions – high pressure and high temperature. That is why diamonds cannot be formed everywhere, but are instead materialised deep undergrounds – sometimes hundreds of miles deep beneath the surface. It is under these conditions that diamonds are made, and this process can take millions of years.
You may have also seen different colours of diamonds – they can be white, blue, green, black, yellow and other colours. This depends on what elements the diamonds were interacting with during their formation.
Lab Grown Diamonds
Having this in mind, let’s look at the process of producing lab grown diamonds, how it differs from the natural process and what the implications are.
Experts share that there are two main methods of creating lab grown diamonds: the High
Pressure, High Temperature method (HPHT; remember how diamonds are made in nature?), and the Chemical Vapor Deposition method (CVD).
The HPHT Method
The HPHT method takes a certain quantity of the element of carbon, or essentially a diamond that has not fully formed. That piece of carbon is pressed, usually by a metal press, and thus exposed to extreme pressure and temperature. The temperature is increased through electricity.
This method requires careful evaluation and control of the process so that the pressure and temperature are just right for the diamonds to mature. This is necessary because in nature, the process can take millions of years, and in a laboratory, it can be finalised within a week. Experts often comment that this process is an extension of nature’s work because it accelerates the process of carbon turning into a diamond.
The diamond interacts with metal during this process, the HPHT is sometimes not preferred to the CVD metal as it may introduce metal particles to the final product. However, these particles, even if present, are virtually invisible to the naked eye and in no way impact the diamond’s quality or genuineness.
Diamonds created through HPHT are considered as natural as any other diamond.
The CVD Method
Some experts say that the CVD method is superior to the HPHT method, arguably making it the best method to produce a lab grown diamond. Let’s look at what this method entails.
It is interesting to point out that the method requires an actual small piece of an already-existing diamond in order to work. The process is intriguing and you might also say genius – the tiny piece of diamond is placed in a special cage, and then the cage is filled with carbon gases. These gases are then heated to very high temperatures which starts the process of ionisation.
During this process, the gases naturally start their chemical transformation and they eventually merge with the piece of diamond already present in the cage. Thus, the process gradually creates different levels of a diamond. One of the reported benefits of this method is the cost reduction in the production of a lab grown diamond.
HPHT and CVD: Which is Better?
The method of creation for lab grown diamonds is usually not listed on the purchase document you take when buying a diamond of this sort. But since there are two methods, this begs the question: which one is better?
The truth is, for all intents and purposes, both processes produce a product that is as perfect and as natural as any other diamond – be it mined or lab grown. There are of course differences between the methods.
First, the CVD grows the diamond with a single growth pattern and this is reported to produce minuscule strains in the diamond’s structure. However, these strains are completely invisible to the naked eye, and it would take specialised equipment to actually point them out.
Second, the HPHT process interacts with metal and this may introduce metal strains to the final product. Once again, this is essentially an invisible difference and does not impact one’s perception of the diamond in any way.
Thirdly, the CVD method is considerably cheaper to complete as it takes much less energy. A cheaper method of creation translates into a cheaper diamond overall.
Why Choose a Lab Grown Diamond?
Now that you know the basics of diamond creation in a lab, you are probably asking yourself – why even consider buying one? The answer boils down to several key tenets of lab grown diamonds that give them an advantage over mined diamonds.
Lab grown diamonds are significantly cheaper with no compromise to quality. They are exactly the same as natural diamonds and cannot be distinguished without special magnification, but their price can be shockingly lower. Mining diamonds takes the intense labour of many people, heavy machinery, digging and transporting – all of this adds to their cost.
Lab grown diamonds are also significantly more friendly to the environment, as the process of laboratory creation excludes a plethora of environmental hazards posed by mining. Additionally, the carbon footprint of either of the two diamond creation methods is noticeably smaller.
The creation of these diamonds is also more ethical and transparent. The diamond mining industry has faced its fair share of controversy and its methods remain a topic for debate and improvement. Lab creation of diamonds is liberated from these controversies and delivers a product that rivals mined diamonds in every aspect.
