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Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

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41–50 of 110 posts

Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#41

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 Here's a strong opinion about why diamonds suck and you should go with alternatives: http://diamondssuck.com/ Lastly, a more dispassionate analysis: http:…

So would Moissanite be a better alternative for encasing nuclear waste batteries?

I hate that name because they do NOT run on nuclear waste - you have to make nuclear material specially for them. Ordinary waste from a power plant will not work!

Anyway I think they use carbon for its electrical properties, not the strength.

Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#42

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 Here's a strong opinion about why diamonds suck and you should go with alternatives: http://diamondssuck.com/ Lastly, a more dispassionate analysis: http:…

"It's a Mossanite"

"...a...what-a-nite?"

"A Mossainite. Artificial, spurious, not-genuine and it's worth....fuck all"

Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#43
post #32

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 s…

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.

Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#44
post #32

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 s…

"why would end consumer care? […] This is a purely emotional response"

Most consumers buy diamonds on emotion, not ratio. If you're buying something to carve into glass with, you don't care. De Beers (very successfully, so far) markets natural diamonds as something you buy to express your love with. If you did _that_ rationally, you likely wouldn't buy a diamond at all.

Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#45
post #40
post #35

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 intereste…

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?

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

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!

Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#46

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.

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.

>Not everyone wants perfection.

Sure. On the other hand, if the synthetic diamonds were the flawed ones, you'd be saying "not everyone will settle for imperfection".

Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#47

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 Here's a strong opinion about why diamonds suck and you should go with alternatives: http://diamondssuck.com/ Lastly, a more dispassionate analysis: http:…

"It's a Mossanite" "...a...what-a-nite?" "A Mossainite. Artificial, spurious, not-genuine and it's worth....fuck all"

Diamonds aren't worth much because they're actually not that rare. The only reason they command the price they do now is because of the De Beers cartel.

The "diamond alternative" meme is becoming increasingly popular with our generation, such that I predict that in a few generations nobody will care to buy "real" diamonds for engagement purposes. When this happens, the price of diamonds will fall dramatically (if it hasn't already by that point).

Diamonds are so overrated.

Re: Lab-Grown Diamonds Come into Their Own

#50

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 Here's a strong opinion about why diamonds suck and you should go with alternatives: http://diamondssuck.com/ Lastly, a more dispassionate analysis: http:…

We may have started turning corner on this one. A friend, senior in the diamond industry, recently commented on how she, too, has caught herself judging younger couples who opt for natural-diamond wedding tokens. At best, she assumes they're ignorant of the worthlessness of ground-dug diamonds.
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