We have the technology to do almost anything, it's just not cost-effective.

 

it doesnt have the pure color of a diamond when created using the chamber. it takes them 48 hours i think from what i recall to make a diamond but its color is slighty off.

 

Synthetic diamonds are visually the same as mined diamonds. Any color diamond can be produced, colorless, pink, yellow, blue, even black. Struturally, on a molecular level they are also mostly the same, the carbon structure is exactly the same as mined diamonds. Man-made or mined, there's only one way to arrange carbon atoms to make a diamond, otherwise it's something else, like graphite for example!

The only differences are synthetic diamonds are doped with nickel that allow it to be detected under UV light, the distribution of nitrogen in the diamond can help identify synthetic diamonds, and people's perception of synthetic vs mined diamonds.

We've been making diamonds since the 1950's and its a big industry right now with applications in many fields like computers, electronics (semiconductors), high precision instruments, etc.

read here for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond

edit: also it's possible to create diamonds that are even purer (ie less imperfections) than a mined diamond. So synthetic diamonds could have superior color and clarity compared to mined diamonds.

 

Diamonds have a much higher melting point than silicon, so conductors in the near-future will be able to withstand 80x that of their silicon counterpart.

Companies such as de Beers is highly threatened by this technology and have been laser cutting their emblem into their diamonds for many years now, so as people will know it's an authentic earth grown diamond. This really will only affect the rich and bored who desire the name brand.

A major socialogical advantage to synthetic diamonds would be the loss of the often shunned, but still ever-present, African conflict diamonds. I think we all know about the horrible situations there. Many companies have sworn to not use them, but it's still out there. Synthetic diamonds will surely create a radical change for conflict diamond countries, but I can't say if it'll be for the better or worse.

 

of course you do

 

Diamonds are so...GAY!

Warren

 

A lot of synthetic diamonds are probably being sold and not disclosed as one.

 

thats a rock!

 

too bad the lapidary process will waste much of that stone. Of course you could create many many smaller diamonds from the left over pieces

I wonder what the clarity and color of that stone is. I bet there are thousands of inclusions fractures and other goodies in there.

man made stones are prettier to me plus they can be cut much more aggresively. The very pretty cushion cut is next to impossible most of the time with traditional diamonds because some of the cuts are prone to creating fractures:






I would be fine with a high quality moissanite in a mans ring.

Hell I would even wear a Herkimer

 

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/d...pic=&topic_set=

check out this article about synthetic diamond.