FEATURE
LAB-GROWN DIAMONDS
David Prager Alan Frampton Leonard Zell
WHAT ARE SYNTHETIC
DIAMONDS?
Element
Six
defines
lab-
grown diamonds as man-made
products of crystallised carbon
- first produced in the 1950s.
Their physical properties -
extreme durability and hardness
- mean they have long had a
range of industrial applications,
mainly as abrasives and for
cutting tools. However, they
also have potential in a range
of
high-tech
applications,
including quantum computing
and the semiconductor industry,
and only relatively recently have
been used in jewellery.
The diamonds are mass
produced in large batches
to uniform specifications in
industrial reactors or high
pressure presses. There are two
methods to synthesis used for
producing lab-grown diamonds,
CVD
(chemical
vapour
deposition) and HPHT (high
pressure high temperature).
CVD synthesis is the process used by Element Six to create the
synthetic diamonds for Lightbox
Jewelry.
The Gemological Institute
of America (GIA), on its
website, says they are “not
fakes, but not natural”. It
adds: “Synthetic diamonds are
grown in a laboratory and have
essentially the same chemical
composition, crystal structure
and physical properties as
natural diamonds.” But Zell,
who has 30 years’ experience
behind the diamond counter
and training fine jewellers
throughout the world, says they
are mere “imitation diamonds”,
and insists customers will see
them as such no matter how
they are packaged up and sold.
“$800 for a carat that is not
even a proper diamond is too
much”, he says.
“By manufacturing diamonds
they are making it a commodity,
with which the prices can range
all over the place. How do
we know that price will hold up? Like anything else that is a
commodity, people can make as
many as they want and split
the market.”
‘‘
24 JEWELLERY FOCUS
‘‘
The main
appeal of
lab-grown
diamonds
in light of
traceability
weakness, is
that they are,
by definition,
conflict-free
THE BENEFITS OF BEING
LAB-GROWN
So what can synthetic diamonds
actually offer the industry? A
Human Rights Watch report
in February this year found a
significant majority of those
working in the jewellery industry
simply cannot trace where their
diamond and gold materials are
coming from - not all the way
to source. The main appeal of
lab-grown diamonds in light of
traceability weakness, is that
they are, by definition, conflict-
free. Alan Frampton, managing
director of Cred Jewellery, is
keen on lab-grown diamonds
because of this, and says they
have “better environmental
credentials” as a result.
Frampton goes further, saying
real-mined
diamonds
have
“problems environmentally and
July 2018 | jewelleryfocus.co.uk