Is a lab diamond still a diamond?

[Chronos]

And here - just for you - is some technical stuff! All of which have to be matched to produce diamond.

All you need to match to produce a diamond is carbon atoms in a tetrehedral crystal structure. If you do that, all of those other properties follow automatically. It’s not like the guys in the lab say “I’ve made something with the right hardness and index of refraction! But darn it, the thermal conductivity is still off. Toss it into the pile of rejects, I guess I’ll just have to try again.”.

[Bill_The_Cat]

@Q.E.D.

This is false. They can be produced now, albeit at a somewhat higher cost than mining natural diamonds of similar quality. That, no doubt, will change eventually.

Wow, thanks. I recently heard of some company (Gemesis?) that used reversible-hydrogenation conditions to grow near-flawless diamonds, but I was under the impression that they still couldn’t get the yellow color out completely. Then again, the article I read was a scientific one, not a business one, so they might have just glossed over the essential business points.

[samclem]

@Q.E.D.

This is false. They can be produced now, albeit at a somewhat higher cost than mining natural diamonds of similar quality. That, no doubt, will change eventually.

If you’re talking about COLOR, then I think that site does a good job of NOT telling you what color stones they sell.

From that site

The diamond industry uses a letter system to grade the color of diamonds, from D (colorless) to Z (light yellow).

Nope, wrong, try again! A diamond with a color between D and I is essentially “white” to the naked eye. When you have a stone that is between a “J-L” color, it has a slight yellow tint. When you have a stone that has a “K-N” color, it’s freakin’ yellow. And stuff that’s below that is yellow/brown/god-awful ugly. And worthless.

So they lied about color.

I’d be curious to know just how good a color they can produce at this point, as I"ve also heard/seen no evidence that they can produce LARGE synthetics in the D-H range.

[eloseo]

How’s this for extra cheese? I did a bit more research. As it turns out, Russian Lab created diamonds (I believe that’s the company name) describes their diamonds as having nearly the same refractive index and hardness as a natural diamond. Their lab stones have a hardness of 8.5. I can hardly call these lab stones diamonds if the physical properties aren’t the same. I’m more inclined to call them crystals, just like cubic zirconia. So not only do I have determine if a diamond is natural or man-made, now I also have to determine if the man-made is actually a real diamond. Maybe I’ll just stick with turquoise.

[mrrealtime]

Do synthetic diamonds have less of an environmental impact than mined ones?

[Chronos]

How’s this for extra cheese? I did a bit more research. As it turns out, Russian Lab created diamonds (I believe that’s the company name) describes their diamonds as having nearly the same refractive index and hardness as a natural diamond. Their lab stones have a hardness of 8.5.

This sounds to me like what they’re making is “clear pretty-looking crystals which might fool a layman (or laywoman) into thinking it’s a diamond”, not “diamonds”. What’s their exact wording describing what they sell? Or better yet, is there a webpage?