▲ 32 points
back
10 comments
It's a diamond if it's carbon atoms in a tetrahedral arrangement, no matter whether it came from a hole in the ground or a factory. Fair enough to call a mix of linseed oil and pigment a fake, but the opening paragraph of the article tries to call the real thing, out of a factory, a fake.
The only real distinction between a factory-made and a mined diamond is that the factory-made diamond has a lower cost to the environment and is less likely to be associated with human suffering.
Edit: add reference:
> The only real distinction between a factory-made and a mined diamond is that the factory-made diamond has a lower cost to the environment and is less likely to be associated with human suffering.
That's not true. There are other differences, including impurities, amounts of isotopes, optical properties (due to the impurities).
You're right about the human suffering part.
He's wrong about the human suffering part - diamonds come from every continent, not just Africa. The mines in Canada and Australia aren't experiencing any human rights violations. Even the African mines are largely controlled by the major miners in the industry. The diamond industry has changed a lot in the past 10-15 years. Blood diamonds is an old and outdated stereotype.
You can add any set of impurities you want to an artificial diamond. You can also adjust the isotope ratio, but probably won't, because it does not make any difference at all.
There's a very real distinction between a real diamond and a fake diamond - demand for the product. Consumers looking for jewelry have virtually no interest in a fake diamond.
Most precious stones can be made synthetically. For sapphire and ruby you can buy bar stock and sheets. Most diamond powder is synthetic, and cheap enough that it's on saws for concrete. Apple, of course, was planning to put sapphire coatings on their phones. Many checkout scanners already have sapphire window coatings. Home Depot, where people drag metal tools across scanners for all day, uses them.
The diamond industry, through its promotional efforts, backed itself into a corner. The goal was "flawless" diamonds, that is, perfect crystals. This put them into competition with the semiconductor materials industry, which makes perfect crystals. There are now 140mm diamond wafers. A TV expose:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhnvZDLizlg
Then there's the Cubic Zirconia Channel on daytime TV.
Surprised they say that synthetic diamonds are only 30-40% cheaper than natural diamonds. I was looking forward to being able to buy a diamond the size of my fist for £100. Wonder whether the lack of movement on cost is just the early players producing low supply and matching the existing natural diamond market, or whether that is a serious cost-based price.
It's not cheap (cheap meaning $100 for a fist sized rock) to make a synthetic diamond. Factor in the lack of demand for large fake diamonds as well. Almost all fake diamonds are used in manufacturing - drills, saws, etc.
Synthetic != fake. They're just as real as any other diamond. Fake diamonds are definitely not used in saws & drills, but synthetic ones are.
I think this story buries the lede. Which is that the author made a 'fake' emerald with things found around the 'house.' As opposed to the modern manufacture of crystals that are chemically identical to gemstones, varying usually only in their improbable purity. There is at least a modest wage in making 'fake' emeralds and rubies at that Renaissance Faire :-)