While today’s market faces challenges of its own, we can’t forget that in the past, the industry faced the kind of disruptions it faces today. However, the past is not a predictor of the future and although 2020 is anticipated to be a difficult year for the industry, diamond retail sales will decline by approximately 2% or more, undoubtedly influenced by the dire situation caused by the COVID-19. China, the world’s second largest diamond jewelry market, will face an even more drastic picture, with declines of more than 5%.
Path To Artificial Diamonds
As mineral diamond sales decline, the future of laboratory manufactured diamonds increases. Diamonds manufactured in jewelry labs and gemstones are without a doubt the most glamorous facet of the manufactured diamond industry, but they only reach approximately 10% of the market. Important here to mention that the use of the Lab Diamond Engagement Rings has become quite famous in the recent times, offering the best look for your fingrs.
- Laboratory diamonds are used to manufacture basic products for modern society, such as laser lenses, orthopedic medical devices, mobile phones, MAC devices or PC`s, glass screens and cables on circuit boards, or even pieces coated with diamonds from planes, turbines and cars, by reducing friction thereof by 25%, according to a statement from the automaker, Nissan.
- These alternative and varied uses are what really support the synthetic diamond market and that is why cultured diamonds are popular and must-have today. They are cheap to produce, cheap to buy, and their production is endless without depleting resources.
Although natural diamonds are rare and get their uniqueness by having been formed in thousands and millions of years, their scarcity is coupled with quite high prices. The key alternative to curb the competitive threat from synthetic diamonds is to increase the consumer’s perception of the value of the mined ones and decrease the value of those made in laboratories, which today seems quite complicated.
The Brilliance of Mind
It’s beginning to look like man’s genius has finally matched nature’s brilliance, and whatever your personal preference is when it comes to diamonds, lab-grown diamonds are here and here to stay. For many years in a row, the jewelry market has been under siege. There is a real war between sellers of synthetic and natural diamonds. The echoes of these battles partially reach retail buyers who, not trying to figure out the issue, immediately start to get scared of “fake diamonds”.
Despite the fact that over the past ten years many articles and monographs on this topic have been published, most consumers, and, frankly, jewelers, still do not give themselves a full account of what exactly is happening. In this article, we will try to figure out together what the threat is, or vice versa, the advantage of having artificially grown diamonds on the market. To go directly to the discussion, it would be nice to once again recall what exactly “synthetics” is and how it is received.
The Difference with Natural Diamond
Natural diamond is carbon, similar to that which serves as a stylus in a pencil, but with a special structure of the crystal lattice. This feature of the internal structure of diamond gives it a completely outstanding hardness. This characteristic would not be especially important if it were not for the outstanding brilliance of natural stone! Cut diamond of high quality diamond called “diamond”, from the English “brilliant”. And indeed these stone glistens in the sun, under the light of candles and incandescent lamps, instantly capturing the views of others.
“Pure as a tear” or “a diamond of pure water” is already a conversation about the color of the stone. Yellow and brown diamonds are found in nature quite often, so diamonds cut from such stones are inexpensive. Another thing is absolutely colorless specimens. They are few, and they are quite expensive. However, the color of a diamond is not such a simple topic. The palette of shades of natural diamonds is very wide. Most often, yellow, brown and black stones are found. It is much less often colorless and green. Even rarer are pink, red, blue and orange diamonds.
Of course, even children know that a diamond and a diamond are a rather rare thing, and therefore they are expensive. Constantly developing chemistry and physics, once led scientists to think that precious stones do not have to be mined in nature. Knowing the chemical composition of the mineral, you can try to artificially “grow” the jewel in the laboratory. Synthetic rubies were the first to be born. This happened in 1847. By the beginning of the 20th century, sapphires were synthesized. As it turned out, copying natural jewelry is not so difficult, so the precious stones synthesized in the laboratory quickly filled the jewelry market. Specialists in the examination of stones gemologists, had to quickly learn to distinguish between natural and artificial gems. However, this did not cause any upheaval in the jewelry market. Synthetic stones differed markedly from natural radically optical properties, so for examination, gemologists always had only one magnifying glass or, in extreme cases, a microscope. Artificially grown gems are widely used in jewelry and inexpensive jewelry of the mass segment, while high-quality natural stones remained available only to the elite, the richest members of society.
Diamonds were not like all the other gems
Despite the very simple composition, they could not be synthesized in the laboratory for a long time. This was achieved only in the 1950s. True, if rubies turned out immediately large and of high quality, then the jewelry use of the first synthesized diamonds was out of the question! The size of the first crystals created in the laboratory barely reached a few tenths of a millimeter. Moreover, the energy costs for the synthesis of such stones were simply monstrous! The cost of producing artificial diamonds was ten times higher than the cost of extracting natural stones. The high temperature and enormous pressure needed to produce the hardest substance on Earth were not given in vain.
By the beginning of 2000, the production process for synthetic diamonds was so improved that it became possible to obtain samples suitable for cutting and commercial use in jewelry. Since the 2010s, the mass production of high-quality synthetic diamonds has been established all over the world and since that time, jewelers’ concerns about the “fake” and “fake” gems have begun.
What should you remember first of all when it comes to synthetic diamonds?
First of all, such a stone is not “fake” and not “imitation”. This material is almost completely identical to natural. The diamond created in the laboratory also consists of carbon with a special structure of the crystal lattice that fully complies with the natural counterpart. It follows that the hardness, optical and physical characteristics of synthetics completely repeats the properties of natural stones. This identity has an unpleasant consequence: it is not possible to distinguish between natural and synthetic diamonds using the old, “old-fashioned” methods, on the knee, with the help of “only a magnifying glass and common sense”. Not even electronic testers of electrical and thermal conductivity will help, easily screening the good old cubic zirconia and moissanites.