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

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

#321

Post by IgorPartola »

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?

Your keys are by no means hardened steel. If they are steel at all (most are brass or silver/zinc), they would be mild steel. If they were hardened they would be really difficult to cut. The harder you make a steel the more brittle it gets. Think about what happens when you slam a file with a hammer vs a large nail.

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

#322

Post by IgorPartola »

db48x wrote: post #296
Terr_ wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about smaller bubbles and aerogels, but when the volume changes by a factor of 0.10, the thickness-budget only changes by a factor of ~0.46. So while many smaller spheres--or pockets sharing walls--might be easier to engineer, the square-cube law [0] eats away at your lifting-power as everything becomes mostly-diamond with very little air-displacing vacuum. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square%E2%8…

Yup, the scaling works the wrong way for small objects. A vacuum–zeppelin makes a lot more sense than a beach ball.

Exactly. That’s why a cubic meter of air is probably not the right range to look at. Something several magnitudes larger might do better.

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

#323

Post by olalonde »

Joker_vD wrote: post #49
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…

> I expect diamonds to lose almost all of their value. Artificial diamonds, you mean. The natural ones will keep their price, just as "hand-crafted" goods did (and, I suspect, as "human-produced" content in the future will); it's a matter of status and signalling that you can afford to buy an inferior, more expensive product.

Did they? I can't think of many hand-crafted goods that survived a superior massed produced version.

Plus, the signal value is lost once the natural and manufactured versions become indistinguishable.

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

#324

Post by Stedag »

chasil wrote: post #298
amelius wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Gorilla glass is already some percentage of "Prince Rupert's Drop" in strength. This is not sufficient? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Rupert%27s_drop

It’s definitely price performant at 6.5 on the mohs scale, sapphire panels are 2-4x more expensive to produce but 9 on the mohs scales so they’re typically only found in watches I bet. At a 10 on the mohs scale diamond is still best for hardness. Maybe the same effect of the prince Rupert’s drop could be induced on a round diamond with an alpha particle beam treatment where you add these ions primarily on the surface of the stone.

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

#325

Post by chii »

thfuran wrote: post #285
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!

I just want a diamond heat sink. And a diamond kitchen knife.

> And a diamond kitchen knife.

Which shatters on contact with a small bone.

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

#326

Post by Joker_vD »

slt2021 wrote: post #173
asdff wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The realities of this market have not hit the consumers. Even young people are still out there spending 5-6 figures on a rock and ascribing real value and aspirations towards eventually "upgrading" into said rocks from perhaps an existing synthetic alternative already set in the ring. Even if the supply side price argument is so perverted now, we still have a culture that wants to put a high value on this object for…

>> They want to spend money on it. no guy ever wants to shell out $$$ for a useless rock

Haven't you heard about goldbugs?

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

#327

Post by almostnormal »

basementcat wrote: post #311
_ph_ wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty sure, diamonds would make awful eyeglasses. While their index of refraction is high, which makes glasses thin, their chromatic dispersion is high. That is the very thing which makes their glitter so colorful. For good optical systems you want to try to reduce the dispersion, to 0, if possible. Another story is the scratch-resistance. For that it would be sufficient to coat the surface of the lens with a t…

So… great for certain colorblind individuals? Edit: Achromotopsia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achromatopsia

Unlikely. Same as under low-light conditions where everything is grayscale. The light is still colored and just not perceived in color, so it should be blurred grayscale.

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

#328

Post by chii »

jaggederest wrote: post #310
nsteel wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Riffing on this, the amazing thing about diamond is not merely that it's a better conductor of heat, but that it's about 2.5 times higher than copper. The only thing that beats it is single crystal boron arsenide which has some obvious downsides, being of course much more expensive and involving arsenic, which is considered a bad thing. And with that, diamond is destined to be even cheaper than silicon, I think. Much…

I heard the expansion of diamond is quite different to many materials, which could lead to splitting or shearing when heated up next to another material attached: https://byjus.com/physics/coefficient-of-linear-expansion/

but perhaps it's not that big of an issue, not sure.

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

#329

Post by gpm »

chii wrote: post #325
thfuran wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want a diamond heat sink. And a diamond kitchen knife.

> And a diamond kitchen knife. Which shatters on contact with a small bone.

I believe that issue is solved with polycrystalline diamond.

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

#330

Post by garbageman »

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?

Keep it if you have sentimental feelings towards it. Sell it if the primary value is the price of the materials.
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