There are more and more connoisseurs of laboratory stones in Russia lately

The executive director of a Russian company specializing in the sale of laboratory diamonds and jewelry with them spoke about the technologies of growing diamonds in laboratory conditions, about the types of natural and artificially grown diamonds, about the future prospects of the market of scientifically created stones and jewelry with them.

What exactly does the company do?

Our trading house is engaged in cutting and selling diamonds grown at one of the enterprises of the SIC by the HPHT method. Its no secret that today more than 95% of laboratory-grown diamonds are used in various industries in the form of powders, plates, lenses and anvils. Progress in science has allowed a person to control the process of "mining" diamonds in laboratory conditions, in which the stone has an almost perfect crystal lattice. Of course, such material is in demand in the electronic or optical industries. The jewelry industry also does not stand aside and is an active consumer of laboratory diamonds.

This direction is just emerging in Russia. And it is just beginning to develop in the world - about 2-3 percent of the total global diamond market is laboratory-grown. And the demand in this market is growing quite rapidly, and this is a fact.

Who is your consumer?

Each product has its own target audience. Recently, jewelers and diamond connoisseurs have increasingly begun to contact us with a request to pick up laboratory stones for a particular decoration. Today we can satisfy any market needs, whether it is a diamond for future jewelry or the jewelry itself, created by our jewelers to order. For diamonds and products made from them, we attach a certificate issued by an independent gemological laboratory, which indicates all the characteristics of the stone. Everything is like a natural diamond.

There are more and more connoisseurs of laboratory stones in Russia lately. The consumers choice in favor of a laboratory diamond is more often based on the understanding that if such a diamond is identical to a natural one and it is much cheaper in price, then why pay more? The buyer understands that for the same money that he is willing to spend on a product with a natural stone, he can buy the same product, but with a diamond three times larger in size and often better in characteristics.

Is there a chance that laboratory-grown diamonds will gradually displace natural ones? So far they exist as two different markets, but they cannot avoid competition in any case?

If we compare laboratory and natural diamonds, there is no difference between them. Diamonds are formed deep in the bowels of the Earth. It is commonly believed that diamonds have been growing for billions of years. In fact, this is not quite true. Their formation requires high pressure, high temperature, and other physico-chemical conditions. The process of creating a diamond by nature takes place at a depth of 100 km. At this depth, the temperature reaches 1500 C and the pressure is more than 40,000 atmospheres - high pressure/high temperature (HPHT). These conditions trigger the process of carbon transition from graphite to diamond. This process is not very long. It takes nature billions of years to deliver a diamond to a depth from which a person can extract it. Diamonds are brought to the surface by kimberlite magma during volcanic eruptions, while forming kimberlite pipes - the main diamond deposits. In short, the logistics of the diamond is too complicated and long. Mining also takes a lot of time and labor. For example, to get a diamond of jewelry quality in one carat, you need to process about 250 tons of rock.

To date, scientists have managed to accurately transfer the natural processes of diamond creation to the laboratory. Our diamonds are also formed using HPHT. This method is similar to the natural geological factors that form diamonds, as I mentioned earlier, at a depth of more than 100 km in the bowels of the Earth. For this purpose, very complex and expensive equipment is used. Of course, the knowledge and experience of technologists who monitor the synthesis and control the growth processes of the future diamond also play a large, if not the main role in the creation of a diamond. Laboratory-grown diamond is identical to natural diamond in all characteristics. They have exactly the same crystal lattice. Even the most experienced gemologist will not be able to distinguish a natural diamond from a laboratory one. The testers used by jewelers to determine the authenticity of a diamond also cannot distinguish a natural diamond from a laboratory one. Only spectral analysis in a specialized laboratory will be able to show the origin of the stone and that such devices are not in every laboratory.

SIC technologists grow Type 2A diamonds in the laboratory, which are the purest. If we turn to the classification of both natural and laboratory diamonds, then there are two main types of their chemical composition - Type 1 and Type 2.

And what are their differences?

These two types differ in their chemical and physical properties, which respectively affects their price. Type 1 is the most common chemical type among diamonds. Such diamonds contain nitrogen in their atomic lattice and about 95% of all jewelry-quality stones belong to this category. Their color varies from almost colorless to light yellow. As I have already said, our diamonds belong to Type 2A. There is practically no nitrogen in them, and therefore such diamonds are considered very rare in nature. Only 1-2% of the mined diamonds belong to this type of stones. Such natural stones are considered investment and among the most famous diamonds of this type can be called Cullinan weighing 530 carats and Koh-i-Nur weighing 105 carats. The technologies used by our SIC specialists at the enterprise have already allowed us to set 2 world records in the growth of laboratory diamonds. From a diamond weighing 50.39 carats, which they were able to synthesize in November 2022, a jeweler-quality diamond of 16.04 carats with high D/VS1 characteristics was cut, and at the beginning of 2023 they managed to grow a diamond weighing 57.28 carats belonging to Type 2a – a pure single crystal without nitrogen atoms and complete absence of structural dislocations, which makes it possible to use such a diamond in the electronic or laser industry. These specimens were examined in a gemological laboratory, whose specialists confirmed the high characteristics of the diamond and diamond presented for examination.

That is, the prospects for the market of laboratory-grown diamonds are the most favorable?

I believe that laboratory diamonds have a very high ethical value. Growing a stone in the laboratory, a person does not damage nature when mining diamonds in the form of huge craters or deep mines. Laboratory conditions of synthesis do not endanger the life and health of people involved in the extraction of stones and, at the same time, diamonds extracted in the laboratory are also individual, because their growth is similar to how a stone grows in the bowels of the Earth, so jewelry made of such diamonds is also liked by those who take care of the surrounding nature. Our diamonds are growing thanks to green technologies - Born Green.

Buyers need to explain and tell what a laboratory diamond is. Some diamond buyers believe that a natural stone is "alive" compared to its laboratory counterpart. However, in my opinion, any stone is made alive by a cutter and a jeweler. It is they who invest their talent, experience and diligence to make the diamond shine with all facets. There is such a concept as "Russian Cut" - Russian Cut. This is a kind of brand and this brand is known all over the world. Russian diamond cutting has always been famous among European and American jewelry houses and we have the most high-class diamond cutters with extensive experience and skills in the field of diamond cutting.

Progress in science is constantly improving our lives, and laboratory-grown diamonds are just one of the many products that are created at the expense of advanced modern technologies. The success of the development of the laboratory diamond market, as well as many other modern and high-tech products, depends on the marketing strategy and filling the gaps of knowledge about a particular product from the consumer.

Today, buyers of jewelry products have a choice that we could not have imagined until recently. A real diamond with high characteristics becomes available to a wider range of consumers.

What is happening now in the world jewelry market with laboratory jewelry and how successfully do they compete with the classics - natural diamonds?

If we take the US jewelry market, then the largest players, such as De Beers, in 2018 launched their own brand of lab-grown Lightbox diamonds. As of 2020, the share of laboratory-grown diamonds on the market reached 3.5%. In 2021, this share was already 5% or 3.9 billion dollars.

In my opinion, Russian jewelry brands working with laboratory diamonds should educate consumers. You know, sometimes even jewelers don really understand the difference between a laboratory diamond and moissanite or cubic zirconia. In the store, the seller often cannot really explain to the buyer what a laboratory-grown diamond is or even calls diamonds cubic zirconia or moissanites. Consumers need to be told about the processes of creating laboratory-grown diamonds, demonstrate how they grow and, thereby, show their incredible quality and value.

Now pink diamonds and fancy flowers in general are in great demand on the market, of which there are very few in nature. Will scientific laboratories fill this gap - or rather, the demand?

Yes, our technologists can predict the color, mass, shape and purity of the future stone. The most popular among natural stones is considered to have a light blue bloom - this is when boron gets into the crystal lattice. Due to the fact that boron atoms are lighter than carbon atoms, there are very few of them in the bowels and they are more difficult, roughly speaking, to hook at the moment of growth. But if boron particles still fall into the lattice, then they are immediately noticeable. We can recreate these processes in the laboratory, and they can have a color even bright blue or dark blue.; it will depend on the concentration you add. We can also create the colors of the yellow spectrum. You can add nitrogen in its pure form, but if you add a certain number of aluminum atoms or a similar material to nitrogen atoms, they are embedded in the lattice and make it possible to get a yellow color - pale or saturated. Nitrogen atoms can be replaced and our stones can be painted. There are already a lot of technologies for the so-called treatment of both natural diamonds and laboratory-grown ones - when we can refine colors. And in the future, this will allow you to get a pink color. We have already conducted a number of experiments to obtain ruby-red and green colors.

Technology is constantly improving our lives, and lab-grown diamonds are just one of the countless products that make advanced technology possible. But their success, like many other products, depends on the education of the consumer. Now we all have a choice that we could not have dreamed of a few years ago. It seems to me that the day when laboratory-grown diamonds will shine brighter for consumers than mined ones will come very soon. The success of laboratory-grown diamonds and other innovative products depends on customer awareness and brand transparency, and who knows, maybe in 10-15 years humanity will no longer need to mine diamonds in nature.

A source: uvelir.info