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posted by martyb on Monday November 19 2018, @12:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the all-that-glitters-is-not-natural-diamond dept.

De Beers Fights Fakes With Technology as China's Lab-Grown Diamonds Threaten Viability of the Real Gems.

The South China Morning Post writes that the dominant diamond player De Beers is reacting badly to the arrival of large numbers of good, tiny, lab-grown diamonds. The synthetics challenge the widely-promoted assertion that diamond prices only go up. However, labs are now able to produce chemically identical gem-quality stones, indistinguishable by the naked eye from mined diamonds, in quantities pushing 200k carats of diamonds per month. Synthetic diamonds still only account for %1 of rough diamond sales globally, but that is expected to expand to between 7.5% to 15% by 2020.


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  • (Score: 1) by pTamok on Monday November 19 2018, @08:20PM

    by pTamok (3042) on Monday November 19 2018, @08:20PM (#764002)

    Well, manufactured diamonds can be distinguished from mined diamonds, as mined diamonds have more imperfections, especially when viewed with a loupe or microscope, and can fluoresce differently when exposed to UV light, and can also phosphoresce differently. You can also discern differing patterns in polarised light.

    More details here: https://www.gia.edu/identifying-lab-grown-diamonds [gia.edu]

    I hope diamond prices drop, as diamond has very useful physical properties. There's a nice parlour* trick where you can use a diamond window (used in expensive spectroscopy equipment [1] [e6.com],[2] [ddk.com],[3] [sciencedirect.com]) as a knife to cut through an ice cube [youtube.com] - it transmits heat so well, it uses the heat from your hand to melt the ice. I would like to be able to demonstrate that at reasonable cost.

    *For parlours with easy access do diamond windows used for spectroscopy. They are Not Cheap.