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What Are Lab Grown

Diamonds?
synthetics, simulants, and the truth: an
introduction to man-made diamonds

What are lab grown diamonds?

Image © NDT

In the simplest terms, lab grown diamonds are

diamonds that have been made by people instead
of mined out of the earth. If it’s so simple, you might
wonder why there’s an entire article below this
sentence. The complexity arises from the fact that
lots of different terms have been used to describe
lab grown diamonds and their cousins, and not
everyone uses these terms in the same way. So,
let’s begin with some vocabulary.

Synthetic. Understanding this term correctly is the

key that unlocks this entire question. Synthetic can
mean artificial or even fake. Synthetic can also
mean man-made, copied, unreal, or even imitation.
But, in this context, what do we mean when we say
“synthetic diamond”?

In the gemological world, synthetic is a highly

technical term. When speaking technically,
synthetic gems are man-made crystals with the
same crystal structure and chemical composition as
the specific gem that is being created. Therefore, a
“synthetic diamond” has the same crystal structure
and chemical composition as a natural diamond.
The same cannot be said of the many imitation or
fake gems that are often, incorrectly, described as
synthetic diamonds. This misrepresentation has
seriously confused what the term “synthetic”
means, and it’s why most producers of man-made
diamonds prefer the term “lab grown” over
“synthetic.”

In

An actual CVD diamond being

grown one atom at a time. Image ©
Carat Systems

order to appreciate this fully, it helps to understand

a little bit about how lab grown diamonds are made.
There are two techniques to grow single crystal
diamonds. The first and oldest is the High Pressure
High Temperature (HPHT) technique. This process
starts with a seed of diamond material and grows a
full diamond just like nature does under extremely
high pressure and temperature.

The newest way to grow synthetic diamonds is the

Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) technique. In the
CVD process, a chamber is filled with a carbon rich
vapor. Carbon atoms are extracted from the rest of
the gas and deposited on a wafer of diamond
crystal which establishes the crystal structure as
the gemstone grows layer by layer. You can learn
more about how lab grown diamonds are made
from our main article on the different techniques.
The important takeaway for now is that both of
these processes are highly advanced technologies
that produce crystals with the exact same chemical
structure and optical properties as natural
diamonds. Now, let’s compare lab grown diamonds
to some of the other gems that you might have
heard of.

Lab Grown Diamonds Compared

with Diamond Simulants
When is a synthetic not a synthetic? The answer is
when it is a simulant. Simulants are gems that look
like a real, natural gem but are actually another
material. So, a clear or white sapphire can be a
diamond simulant because it looks like a diamond.
That white sapphire can be natural or, here’s the
trick, synthetic sapphire. The key to understanding
the simulant issue is not how the gem is made
(natural vs synthetic), but that it is a substitute that
looks like another gem. So, we can say that a man-
made white sapphire is a “synthetic sapphire” or
that it can be used as a “diamond simulant,” but it
would be incorrect to say that it is a “synthetic
diamond” because it does not have the same
chemical structure as a diamond.

A white sapphire, marketed and disclosed as a

white sapphire, is a sapphire. But, if it is used in
place of a diamond, then it is a diamond simulant.
Simulant gems, again, are attempting to mimic
another gem, and if they are not clearly disclosed
as simulants they are considered fakes. A white
sapphire is not, by nature, a fake (in fact it is a
beautiful and highly valuable gem). But if it is being
sold as a diamond, it becomes a fake. Most gem
simulants are trying to imitate diamonds, but there
are also simulants for other valuable gemstones
(sapphires, rubies, etc.).

Here are some of the more popular diamond

simulants.

( Synthetic Rutile was introduced in the late

1940s and used as an early diamond simulant.
( Next on the man-made diamond simulant play is
Strontium Titanate. This material became a
popular diamond simulant in the 1950s.
( The 1960s brought the development of two
simulants: Yttrium Aluminum Garnet (YAG) and
Gadolinium Gallium Garnet (GGG). Both are
man-made diamond simulants. It is important to
reiterate here that just because a material can be
used as a diamond simulant does not make it a
“fake” or a bad thing. YAG, for example, is a very
useful crystal that lies at the heart of our
laser welder.
( The most popular diamond simulant by far today
is synthetic Cubic Zirconia (CZ). It is cheap to
produce and sparkles very brilliantly. It is a great
example of a synthetic gemstone that is a
diamond simulant. CZs are very often,
mistakenly, referred to as synthetic diamonds.
( Synthetic Moissanite also creates some
confusion. It is a man-made, synthetic gem that
actually has some diamond-like properties. For
example, diamonds are especially good at
transferring heat, and so is Moissanite. This is
important because the most popular diamond
testers use heat dispersion to test if a gemstone
is a diamond. However, Moissanite has a
completely different chemical structure than
diamond and different optical properties. For
example, Moissanite is double-refractive whereas
diamond is single-refractive.

A diamond tester like this one can’t

differentiate between Moissanite and
diamond.

Since Moissanite tests like diamond (due to its heat

dispersal properties), people think it is diamond or
synthetic diamond. However, since it does not have
the same crystal structure or chemical composition
of diamond, it is not a synthetic diamond.
Moissanite is a diamond simulant.

It may be becoming clear at this point why the term

“synthetic” is so confusing in this context. With
Moissanite we have a synthetic gem that looks and
acts a lot like diamond but should never be referred
to as a “synthetic diamond.” Because of this, along
with most of the jewelry industry, we tend to use the
term “lab grown diamond” to refer to a true
synthetic diamond that shares the same chemical
properties as a natural diamond, and we tend to
avoid the term “synthetic diamond” given how much
confusion it can create.

There is another diamond simulant that creates a

lot of confusion. Diamond coated Cubic Zirconia
(CZ) gems are produced using the same Chemical
Vapor Deposition (CVD) technology that is used to
produce lab grown diamonds. With diamond coated
CZs, a very thin layer of synthetic diamond material
is added on top of a CZ. The nanocrystalline
diamond particles are only about 30 to 50
nanometer’s thick. That is about 30 to 50 atoms
thick or 0.00003mm. Or, should it be said,
extremely thin. CVD diamond coated Cubic Zirconia
are not synthetic diamonds. They are glorified
Cubic Zirconia diamond simulants only. They do not
have the same hardness or crystal structure of
diamonds. Like some eye glasses, CVD diamond
coated Cubic Zirconia has an extremely thin
diamond coating only. However, this does not stop
some unscrupulously marketers from calling them
synthetic diamonds. Now, you know better.

Lab Grown Diamonds Compared

with Natural Diamonds
So, now that we know what lab grown diamonds
are not, it’s time to talk about what they are. How
do lab grown diamonds compare to natural
diamonds? The answer is based in the definition of
synthetic. As we have learned, a synthetic diamond
has the same crystal structure and chemical
composition as a natural diamond. Therefore, they
look just like the natural gemstone. They sparkle
the same. They have the same hardness. Side by
side, lab grown diamonds look and act just like
natural diamonds.

See the octagonal inclusion in this

lab grown diamond? Such a feature
would never occur naturally.

The differences between a natural and a lab grown

diamond stem from how they were made. Lab
grown diamonds are man-made in a lab while
natural diamonds are created in the earth. Nature is
not a controlled, sterile environment, and natural
processes vary abundantly. Therefore, the results
are not perfect. There are many types of inclusions
and structural signs that nature made a given gem.

Lab grown diamonds, on the other hand, are made

in a controlled environment. They have signs of a
regulated process that is not like nature.
Furthermore, human efforts are not perfect and
they leave their own flaws and clues that humans
made a given gem. The types of inclusions and
subtle variations in crystal structure are one of the
main ways to differentiate between lab grown and
natural diamonds. You can also learn more about
how to tell if a diamond is lab grown or natural from
our main article on the subject.

The bottom line: lab grown diamonds are just like

natural diamonds, but man-made. Diamond
simulants are not the same as diamonds. They
have the general look of diamonds but not the
same properties. Now that you understand what a
lab grown diamond is, you can better decide if a
lab grown diamond is right for you. And, you can
rest assured that the gemologists at Arden
Jewelers are here to answer any questions you
have, clearly explain the origins of the diamonds we
sell, and find you the perfect diamond in your
budget.

FJU Category: Lab Grown Diamonds

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