Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

worksinprogress.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 511 posts

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#331

Post by _yb2s »

kuschku wrote: post #308
perth wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So scratching definitely still happens, both on sapphire camera lenses and new scratch-resistant screen technology. I’ve mainly had it happen with concrete. I think concrete sometimes just has some rocks in it that have a very high hardness because I’ve gotten pretty thick scratches in new iPhones when they’ve taken a slide over a rough concrete sidewalk due to a drop while walking.

I've similarly experienced bad scratches whenever my phone and my keys come into contact, hardened steel may still be able to cause scratches?

This should not be possible with any type of modern phone screen. Do you perhaps have a plastic screen cover that is scratched? Or key metal could be deposited on the screen and just need to be scraped off

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#332

Post by _yb2s »

opan wrote: post #222
amelius wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we can have diamond-based scratch protection on smartphones?

Don't we already have good scratch protection? Cracks from drops seem like the main issue.

I love going to the beach, and find that modern phones still scratch easily with sand.

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#333

Post by rhplus »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #313
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #11

Over the past 10 years, there has been an explosion in cheap lab diamond and moissanite producers in China and India. 10 years ago, it was hard to find quality lab diamonds at a reasonable price, and moissanite was still reasonably expensive at $400-600/ct. Today, given cutthroat competition and "race to the bottom" pricing strategies, lab diamonds are ubiquitous, extremely high quality, and cheap. Less than $200/ct…

For those that bought into natural stuff at exhorbitant prices, what would you suggest the appropriate move is?

Cut your loses and chalk it up as a learning opportunity.

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#334

Post by garbageman »

consteval wrote: post #118
Xenoamorphous wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never bought a diamond in my life and have zero intention of doing so, but I can see how to some people there would be the appeal of knowing that a diamond came from some rock where it had stayed untouched for millions of years vs. an artificial one made in some China lab last month.

I think the value of diamonds has always been their rarity and cost. Historically, for married women this allowed them some financial strength and safety net. Of course as time goes on that function becomes less useful, but the idea has still stuck around a bit. I predict people will turn to other gemstones, or will stick to "natural" diamonds and maybe even get them certified and stuff, producing another artificial…

Your use of "historically" in the context of diamonds only means the past 100 years. Prior to the marketing of diamonds, sapphire was most common.

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#335

Post by kortex »

LanceH wrote: post #152
Nevermark wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I heard from the forefront of geology and ecology, "natural" televisions and tacos have yet to be found. So I don't think the distinction is best analyzed with examples like that. If something is normally created and nature, and humans find a way to reproduce it, it is common to call the human produced versions artificial even if the result is identical in principle. Humans make lots of distinctions that fall ap…

Burn hydrogen to make water. Is that artificial water? Or is it forever artificial water? Is all water that mixes with it artificial water? Is all water now artificial since it has mixed with human made water? While the basic definition seems to be merely "man-made", I would say it holds there is some underlying distinction between the natural and artificial. Natural light vs artificial light -- the two are distinctl…

That's not what makes things artificial vs natural. Artificial vanillin is "more vanilla than real vanilla". A natural vanillin molecule is indistinguishable from fully synthetic vanillin from crude oil. The latter is still called "artificial flavor".

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#336

Post by _yb2s »

jayd16 wrote: post #210
Terr_ wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also the whole aerostat thing where you make a diamond "balloon" full of vacuum that floats in air, using the strength of the rigid diamond to avoid it being crushed and popped. I'm no materials-scientist, but I did some napkin-math on that once and it came out to some ridiculously-thin-sounding layer of diamond.

so I guess it needs to be like 1/4th the thickness of the latex in a balloon (diamond is 4x the density). Vacuum gives you a bit more lift than helium but not that much. Yeah, seems pretty thin.

The pressure across a latex balloon is only about 0.5% that of maintaining a vacuum in earths atmosphere. I’m guessing the diamond would need to be much more than 1/4 the thickness of a latex balloon.

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#337

Post by _yb2s »

newZWhoDis wrote: post #305
Animats wrote: post #105

That's a good article. The whole history is there. The commercial side has made huge progress, too. Look up "diamond making machine" on Alibaba. You can buy a high-pressure, high temperature six sided press for about US$200,000. A chemical vapor deposition machine is about the same price. De Beers, the diamond cartel, has an R&D operation, Element Six. They sell synthetic diamonds for lasers and other exotic applicat…

I just want solid diamond cookware. Wouldn’t a diamond skillet be incredibly non-stick, easy to clean, and totally non toxic?

There are diamond pans that I think are a ceramic mixed with industrial diamond dust. I had one once and it was amazing- very non stick and didn’t scratch like teflon.

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#338

Post by thaumasiotes »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #85
thaumasiotes wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The synthetic equivalents have to be similar, because they're the same thing as the natural stones, and the natural stones are similar. A ruby is corundum with chromium coloring it; a sapphire is corundum with (most typically) iron coloring it. Iron isn't rare, so either it affects the process used to make rubies, or there's no real reason for the price gap.

"No real" reason wouldn't shock me. Not a gemstone expert so I can't say, but if natural sapphires are more expensive/in higher demand than natural rubies (despite both being corundum) then it makes sense for that demand to map onto their synthetic counterparts. But with the synthetic stones, it's more obvious how arbitrary that demand/price difference is.

My impression was that natural rubies are generally more expensive than natural sapphires.

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#339

Post by trissylegs »

nsteel wrote: post #215
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is certainly good news for lasers. Many people don't realize how good diamonds are for this. Transparent with a 65% higher refractive index than glass, and 8x the thermal conductivity of copper. And completely scratch-proof!

Why are they not more popular as a material for heatsinks? Especially with those that like decorating the inside of the PC with fairy lights.

No for PC heatsink, but in 3d printing heat is really important for the nozzel. And a company makes them with Polycrystaline Diamond, which is harder than normal diamond. The company needed it themselves as the carbon fibre filament they were using kept wearing out heads. They though "Why don't we make our own heads".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96eFnTescoY

Re: Synthetic diamonds are now purer, more beautiful, and cheaper than mined

#340

Post by [deleted] »

Animats wrote: post #105

That's a good article. The whole history is there. The commercial side has made huge progress, too. Look up "diamond making machine" on Alibaba. You can buy a high-pressure, high temperature six sided press for about US$200,000. A chemical vapor deposition machine is about the same price. De Beers, the diamond cartel, has an R&D operation, Element Six. They sell synthetic diamonds for lasers and other exotic applicat…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN