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iamonds, being a girl’s best friend, have long captured our imagination as symbols of enduring love and markers of life’s most precious moments. Yet most are unaware that advances in technology now allow diamonds to be grown in modern laboratories that rival those found deep underground. Read on to discover the science, ethics, and savings behind these lab-grown diamonds that now decorate fingers and adorn necks across the globe.
What are lab-grown diamonds?
Far from fake or imitation, lab-created diamonds are actually diamonds. They have the same optical, physical, and chemical properties as their mined counterparts. Atom by atom, they are completely identical without flaws, faults, or imperfections. The only difference lies in their origin: above ground in a technological setting rather than excavated from a mine. In these labs, powerful machines recreate the tremendous heat and pressure that natural diamonds need to form over billions of years. This mimicking of nature in a lab allows man-made diamonds to grow in just weeks or months.
Are lab-grown diamonds real?
Scientifically speaking, lab-grown diamonds are 100% real. They have the same diamond structure down to the crystalline arrangement of their carbon atoms. When graded by gemological institutes, they receive the same 4Cs measurements — cut, color, clarity, and carat weight. Without specialized equipment, not even a jeweler can distinguish them from mined diamonds! Unlike simulated stones like cubic zirconia, lab diamonds register as authentic diamonds on thermal conductivity tools. Simply put, though the origins of lab-grown and mined diamonds differ, the diamonds themselves are identical.
The lab-grown diamond creation process
Turning carbon into brilliant diamonds seems like alchemy yet physics lays out the procedure. Advanced chemical vapor deposition machines allow gases with carbon atoms to settle as the diamond film on small seed crystals. These seeds grow in plasma reactor chambers that replicate the intense heat and pressurized conditions diamonds need to form in the earth. Temperatures over 2100°F, combined with pressures over 1500 GPA, enable atoms to arrange into the characteristic diamond structure. By manipulating variables like gas composition and energy levels, manufacturers can control a stone’s shape as well as optical qualities of color and clarity. It’s complex but controlled innovation at its finest, and the results glitter and gleam just as brilliantly as any diamond pulled from a mine.
Do lab-grown stones sparkle like the real thing?
The radiance of a diamond, even lab-grown options, depends on skilled cutting and quality grading. So yes, lab-grown diamonds shine just as brilliantly as mined diamonds. With precise cuts that maximize light refraction and reflection, the dazzling flashes of fire and sparkle look identical to the eye when set in jewelry. Light enters, reflects internally off the many exquisite facets, and fans out in an array of colors. Well-cut lab diamonds also show the same mesmerizing flashes even in low light.
Why should you consider lab-grown diamonds?
They are guilt-free, ethical, and cheaper. Lab-grown diamonds connect science with ethics and savings in a triple threat of consumer benefits. Their manufacture eliminates the social and environmental costs associated with traditional diamond mining while technology drives down pricing. And because they are materially identical to earth-mined diamonds, the stones still convey the magical essence diamonds are known for. In fact, some surveys show women prefer lab diamonds’ conflict-free origins. Simply put, these gems represent an ideal combination of optically perfect diamonds with upstanding origins at prices that make them accessible luxuries for all.
Featured image: @grownbrilliance/Instagram
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