
Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own - happy-go-lucky
http://www.npr.org/2016/12/01/502330818/lab-grown-diamonds-come-into-their-own
======
ericfranklin
I've been running a lab-grown diamond company since 2005. I'd be happy to
answer any questions in the morning.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
How cheap can good quality diamond get?

If you're buying raw carbon in the form of coal, it costs about $40 per ton.

The rest is manufacturing details. I know there's a _lot_ of manufacturing
details, but the cost of the inputs suggests that diamonds in bulk could be
much much cheaper.

~~~
ericfranklin
If a large enough production facility (no R&D) had nearly every growth cycle
yield large enough, colorless, flawless diamonds (or close to it), the retail
prices could come down more than they currently are. However, that does not
reflect the current reality and all producers today are basically in R&D mode
with mixed success rates and mixed finished quality.

If someone showed up tomorrow with a check for several million dollars, I
believe we could "disrupt" the current diamond pricing within 3-5 years.
However, as I mentioned in another post in this thread, raw cost of production
will still keep those "disrupted" non-R&D diamonds much more expensive than
moissanite, CZs, sapphires and other gemstones.

Diamond is a form of carbon, and its growth is more-or-less determined by
nature. The cost of production over time will be more similar to an industry
like steel, than assembled goods like TVs or computers. There are improvements
to be made, but they are more linear over time, than exponential
breakthroughs.

For raw carbon, we use a highly refined and purified form of graphite. If you
used the $40/ton coal, you would not be successful in growing jewelry-quality
diamonds, and even if you did, the other costs wouldn't really change your
ultimate price much.

Another analogy is gold. You can buy a 1 Troy-ounce bar of 24 karat gold for a
bit over $1000. However, a solitaire engagement ring with much less actual
gold content can cost more than $1000. People ask why the jewelry is more
expensive, but don't include the cost for refining and alloys, design, 3D
printing or molds, casting and investments, polishing, setting, shipping, ring
boxes, and all the other overhead associated with turning that gold bar into a
sold, ready-to-wear ring.

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mistermumble
In addition to created diamonds, there are other stones that are different
from and in some aspects better than diamonds.

The best one seems to be Moissanite, which also has the rather pedestrian name
of silicon carbide. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moissanite)

Here's a strong opinion about why diamonds suck and you should go with
alternatives: [http://diamondssuck.com/](http://diamondssuck.com/)

Lastly, a more dispassionate analysis: [http://www.doamore.com/diamonds-vs-
moissanite/](http://www.doamore.com/diamonds-vs-moissanite/)

Moissanite can be 90% cheaper than equivalent diamond, not just 30%.

~~~
yougotborked
Yep, my now fiance loves her Moissanite stone. I actually got it from
AliExpress and then had it appraised by a jeweler to check it's authenticity.
Saved a bunch of money and got a great product.

~~~
kwhitefoot
Pictures?

~~~
lisivka
Diamon vs Mossanite:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZE3Vkb85Z4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZE3Vkb85Z4)

~~~
kwhitefoot
Thank you!

Both pretty but I can't see myself spending much on either.

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mojoe
The fact that there is so much concern over how to differentiate mined
diamonds from grown diamonds seems like insanity to me. I understand that the
diamond trade has a vested interest in differentiating, but why would end
consumer care? They're the exact same product to the unaided eye. This is a
purely emotional response. I guess the thing that bothers me the most is that
it's a misguided emotional response -- it seems clear that it would reduce
human and environmental suffering to purchase the grown diamonds.

~~~
curun1r
Because the purveyors of diamonds, and you could argue jewelry in general,
have positioned themselves as proxies for love and sex. Those are the things
we value and the reasons we spend money, but we're not allowed, either by
societal convention or law, to spend money on them directly. But we're allowed
to spend exorbitant amounts of money on a glittery status symbols that serves
as a measure of devotion. It's not the rock itself that's important, it's the
willingness to sacrifice a substantial amount of money.

So if the point of buying a diamond is to show your love for someone by
sacrificing a meaningful amount of money, it becomes important to distinguish
between stones that someone actually sacrificed a substantial amount of money
to purchase and stones where someone didn't sacrifice as much.

We'd do better to address the insane custom of needing an expensive proxy for
love. Think about it...if the custom were for a man to take two months salary,
withdraw it from the bank in $100 bills, drop to one knee and present it to
his girlfriend while asking her to marry him, we'd find that insulting. It
would be like he's paying for love/sex, which our society deems dirty or
objectifying to women. But substitute a glittery rock mounted on a hunk of
metal, both largely obtained by heaping further misery on various third-world
locations, and we somehow find that acceptable? Accepting the money would make
her a whore, but accepting the ring just means her boyfriend loves her?

It's illogical and hopefully more women start making it known to their
boyfriends that the ring isn't necessary and all that extra money, if it needs
to be spent on something impractical, can be spent on making the wedding just
a bit more lavish.

~~~
nwellinghoff
Very wise. It's going to be up to the women to tell their men they don't want
this crap. At the end of the day us men are just going to get you what you
want to make you happy.

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cmsmith
I shopped for created diamonds a year or two ago, and like others was
disappointed with the cost savings. It seems awfully odd that on the spectrum
from $0.01/caret to $1,000,000/caret, that created diamonds ended up costing
exactly the same as a mined diamond, less maybe 30%. It's clear that there are
only a couple players in the clear created diamonds market, and no one is too
eager for a price war and to stop printing money. In which case it doesn't
sound all that different from the mined diamond market

~~~
Teever
It's different in that there are a lot less slaves and warfare involved in the
production of these new products.

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salmon30salmon
This is wonderful! I can't comprehend the need to mine for diamonds any
longer. Such a dangerous, dirty, damaging practice. It is sad to see that the
industry is trying to paint these as inferior.

I would love to see some sort of tariff or sanction placed on mined diamonds
to make them restrictively expensive. There is simply no need for them any
longer.

~~~
sandworm101
Not all diamond types/classes are being manufactured. Synthetic diamonds will
always be different from natural stones specifically because they lack natural
imperfections. Not everyone wants perfection.

~~~
imaginenore
Imperfections can be added

~~~
ThomPete
Imperfection are naturally formed, you cant naturally create imperfections
that just become by definition artficially created imperfections.

~~~
xorxornop
Well, what if it's done randomly? (like, by software that controls the machine
that grows it)

Or, modify the growing process so that it has a greater element of chance to
it? (this is likely multi-dimensional)

~~~
ThomPete
Whatever randomization isn't natural (and it can't be completely random as it
needs to look natural). But it's not really the point.

A diamonds primary value is the history of it's making. People are
unfortunately always going to be paying more for a diamond which has been
digged out by hard labour than created in a lab.

Keep in mind the value of diamonds is mostly a perceptive one. I am pretty
sure if you only did synthetic diamonds it would soon fail to be valuable as
the "womans best friend"

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jpmattia
> His lab can tell the difference — they use microscopes and other instruments
> to look for subtle features that reveal a diamond's origin.

Wild guess as to why anyone can tell the difference: Lab-grown diamonds are
more perfect than mined ones. It's probably pretty trivial to introduce
impurities to degrade the color, or change the deposition temperature in order
to create faults in the lattice. Hell, throw in a microparticle or two for
inclusions.

I'd love to know more though, anyone got a reference?

~~~
ericfranklin
Diamond growers try their best to keep out impurities and imperfections.
Elemental impurities do add color (nitrogen=yellow, boron=blue), same as mined
diamonds, and faults and inclusions do naturally happen in the process.
However, at an atomic level, they are different than inclusions and
imperfections in mined diamonds.

As a producer, I don't see any incentive to make them imperfect on purpose,
yet still distinguishable from mined diamonds. All larger diamonds intended
for gemstones come with independent grading reports, which will still identify
it as grown regardless of presence or lack of impurities and imperfections.

While not technically correct, some of the advanced detection equipment can be
thought of like looking at growth rings on a tree. You (probably) can't
replicate the growth rings of a 200 year old tree in a 5 year old tree, yet
both are perfectly valid sources of wood (sustainability, etc. aside).

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daeken
It's funny to see this pop up now. I've spent the past few days researching my
big experiment project for next year: an open design CVD reactor for
artificial diamonds.

I don't intend to commercialize it at all, but if I can 1) learn a lot, 2)
make an open design that others can build on, and 3) (the long shot) make
small diamonds for my wedding ring at the end of the year, I'll be a happy
man.

If anyone is interested in working on this (particularly if you have
experience designing systems dealing with pressurized gasses), my email is in
my profile.

~~~
fizixer
I would love to get into hacking/tinkering based on processes like MBE/CVD
etc. Does anyone know where to get started in terms of reading, what are the
options for a hobbyist?

~~~
daeken
I can't speak to MBE, but for CVD I mostly just googled around and read any
papers I could find. However, IIT Madras has an entire course on the subject,
all of which are on youtube:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsDO7gUBYjg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsDO7gUBYjg)

I've been learning a lot from that, though it's focused on laying down
semiconductor layers; most of the info on CVD diamonds seems to be locked away
in proprietary processes for various manufacturers. I foresee a lot of failed
experiments in my future!

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vezycash
Let's give Moissanite a new catchy, less complex name. Else, it will remain
unknown.

I propose the name Moon Stone.

Star fire would have been great but it'll be confused with Sapphire.

See ffg for effect of company name pronunciability on market share, stock
price, brand value...

[http://m.pnas.org/content/103/24/9369.full](http://m.pnas.org/content/103/24/9369.full)

[http://russelljame.com/Fluency_JFE_2013.pdf](http://russelljame.com/Fluency_JFE_2013.pdf)

~~~
mb_72
"Sanité" \- it's related to 'moissanite', the 'é' makes it sound classy, and
of course it's pronounced 'sanity' as that is what it brings to the whole
ridiculous diamond situation.

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ipqk
At some point in the near future, maybe 1 year, maybe 10, anyone with a spare
couple million dollars will be able to buy a machine to grow diamonds
indistinguishable from mined diamonds, defects and all. No one will be able to
tell at all, and the market will be flooded. Prices for mined & manufactured
alike will crater.

There is no future for mined diamonds.

~~~
jghn
at some point 15-20 years or so ago De Beers started laser etching logos on
the diamonds for exactly this reason.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Wasn't the public reason for laser etching to prevent conflict diamonds from
having a market?

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grondilu
The largest diamond in the world still is natural, isn't it? Will it ever be
synthetic and if so when?

~~~
undersuit
>The largest diamond in the world still is natural, isn't it?

It's most definitely a natural diamond, and it's also most definitely
undiscovered in some incredibly rich diamond deposit.

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cowardlydragon
Only 30% cheaper?

I once heard a dollar a caret from one of the startups a decade ago...

~~~
giblfiz
Without actually knowing anything about the subject my guess is that the very
cheep synthetic diamonds you heard about were / are intended for tools, (Where
all that they care about is the hardness, so they can be small, yellow, and
messy)

Also, I do know that you can get synthetic ruby for ~$1/carat on ali-baba. (I
actually bought a few)

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epx
Aren't pearls cultured for decades now? They are still sought for, nothing is
more beautiful in a woman's neck than a pearl collar.

~~~
13of40
Not that it really matters at the end of the day, but there's probably some
charm in knowing that your "cultured" pearl was still formed inside a bivalve
living in the ocean, versus being made in a machine like a porcelain
gobstopper.

That said, check out this cool picture:
[https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/shrinknp_800_800/AAEAAQAAAAA...](https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/shrinknp_800_800/AAEAAQAAAAAAAAZTAAAAJDVmNWFlMzJmLWU0ZWYtNDM5OS04YzAxLWIzYmRjZGQzNDY4ZQ.jpg)
I didn't realize it was so industrial...

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jzig
> And larger stones get laser-inscribed, so that the manufactured stones
> literally have words like "lab-grown" written right on them.

Why?

~~~
ISL
Manufacturers want their product to be accepted for what it is, rather than a
vehicle for defrauding others.

If someone bought a manufactured stone expecting it to have been mined (and
paid the premium currently accorded to mined stones), the buyer might direct a
fraction of their disappointment at the manufacturer, instead of the deserving
fraudulent seller.

Adding a nigh-invisible mark makes it trivial for a jeweler to tell the
difference, and stops all but the least-informed fraudulent sellers before
they begin.

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jvandonsel
Is it true that it's actually illegal to pick up a diamond off the ground in
South Africa?

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Synaesthesia
Are these also going to be artificially inflated like mined diamonds?

