Lab Diamonds Are No Longer Distinguishable From Diamonds

A long time has passed since man discovered the diamond. There is nothing more special about a diamond than its hardness. We are often under the impression that hardness is synonymous with metals, which are supposed to be considerably harder than diamonds. In reality, however, diamonds are the hardest substance in nature. We only need to do one experiment to know that if we hold a diamond in our hand, we can scratch it on most metals with just a little pressure.

This hard quality of diamonds is often of little practical use to us daily. But in industry, hard objects can often be used as drill bits for all kinds of cutting equipment. But as experts discovered that the optical properties of diamonds were just as excellent, they eventually came into view in the form of gemstones. Diamonds have a very high reflectance, a slight critical angle of reflection, and a wide range of total reflection. These properties make diamonds highly susceptible to total reflection and appear more brilliant than other gemstones. This is why jewelers have made it possible for the octahedral diamond to sparkle and shine using exquisite cutting techniques. As a result, diamonds have become a new luxury.

Despite its excellent properties, the fantastic thing about diamonds is that they are made up of carbon, the same element as the pencil lead we usually use. Diamonds are a world away from pencil lead simply because their physical structure is different. So some experts began to investigate whether there was a way to make artificial diamonds from ordinary carbon by using artificial means. Natural diamonds are created because carbon atoms have been buried under high pressure in the ground for millions of years and have been squeezed over time. So experts created artificially high temperature and pressure environments through laboratory conditions. The world's first man-made diamond was finally created in this way by General Electric in 1954.

When the lab-grown diamond technology first came out, the cost was not as high as that of natural diamonds, but it was not affordable for the general public either. So jewelers had no intention of using lab-grown diamonds to make diamond rings. And there were flaws in the manufacturing technology at the time, such as the fact that a small number of nitrogen atoms would still enter the experimental equipment throughout the manufacturing process, causing the artificial diamond to take on a slight yellow color. Secondly, the physical structure of a natural diamond is ortho-octahedral, whereas a manufactured diamond is not, resulting in a phosphorescent phenomenon. These cosmetic flaws were a fatal drawback for jewelers, but irrelevant for industrial equipment, so the earliest lab-made diamonds were mainly used for industrial purposes.

As society developed and people's living standards rose, they slowly reached a point where they could accept artificial diamonds. As a result, jewelers began to make diamond rings with synthetic diamonds. As a result of the technological advancement of man-made diamonds, the quality of grown diamonds is now very high. From the naked eye alone, we can no longer tell whether a diamond is a lab diamond or not.