Super flawless diamonds now made by machines

Worldnetdaily ^ | 08/18/03 | Staff Writer

[bedolido]

Setback for jewel industry is good news for high-tech

Two companies are manufacturing gem-quality diamonds that may break the DeBeers cartel and set off a high-tech craze for diamond chips much heartier than silicon, reports Wired Magazine's September issue.

The diamonds are flawless and can fool even the most expert of gemologists.

The natural conditions that produce diamonds have long been understood – put pure carbon under enough heat and pressure and it will crystallize into the hardest material known. But evolutionists have suggested it would require millions of years to reproduce the precise set of circumstances. Some have suggested the earth's diamonds were produced deep in the planet's mantle some 3.3 billion years ago.

While replicating the conditions in a lab isn't easy, many have tried. Since the mid-19th century, Wired reports, dozens of these modern alchemists have been injured in accidents and explosions while attempting to manufacture diamonds. Starting in the 1950s, engineers managed to produce tiny crystals for industrial purposes – to coat saws, drill bits and grinding wheels.

"But this summer, the first wave of gem-quality manufactured diamonds began to hit the market," the magazine reports. "They are grown in a warehouse in Florida by a roomful of Russian-designed machines spitting out 3-carat roughs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A second company, in Boston, has perfected a completely different process for making near-flawless diamonds and plans to begin marketing them by year's end. This sudden arrival of mass-produced gems threatens to alter the public's perception of diamonds – and to transform the $7 billion industry. More intriguing, it opens the door to the development of diamond-based semiconductors."

Diamond is not only the hardest substance known, it also has the highest thermal conductivity.

"Today's speedy microprocessors run hot – at upwards of 200 degrees Fahrenheit," says the report. "In fact, they can't go much faster without failing. Diamond microchips, on the other hand, could handle much higher temperatures, allowing them to run at speeds that would liquefy ordinary silicon. But manufacturers have been loath even to consider using the precious material, because it has never been possible to produce large diamond wafers affordably. With the arrival of Gemesis, the Florida-based company, and Apollo Diamond, in Boston, that is changing. Both startups plan to use the diamond jewelry business to finance their attempt to reshape the semiconducting world."

The sudden appearance of multi-carat, gem-quality synthetics has sent the DeBeers diamond cartel scrambling. Several years ago, it set up what it calls the Gem Defensive Program – a campaign to warn jewelers and the public about the arrival of manufactured diamonds. At no charge, the company is supplying gem labs with sophisticated machines designed to help distinguish man-made from mined stones.

"I was in combat in Korea and 'Nam," says Gemesis founder Carter Clarke. "You better believe that I can handle the diamond business." His company has 27 diamond-making machines up and running – with 250 planned – at his factory outside Sarasota, Fla.

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[aruanan]

What a stupid thing for this article to say.

Yeah. I ought to start a file of stupid quotes like the one you refer to. It would be fun.

[aruanan]

I wonder what's holding up synthetic crude?

The ability to turn methane into long chain hydrocarbons in a way that's cheaper than sucking them out of the ground?

[NYFriend]

If you smack a diamond ring wrong, it will shatter. Not what you want from armor. You'd rather it be soft but not brittle. They won't make good kinetic energy projectiles, because they'd fragment on impact (if they could survive being accelerated) without penetrating. They would also wear the barrel down.

[HamiltonJay]

Technology puts an end to the endless african civil wars and cruelty... film at 11.

[myrabach]

"So, I wonder what will replace the diamond as the ultimate token of devotion?"

Fidelity perhaps?

[Bernard Marx]

The business fuels organized crime around the world. The diamond dealer busted in NYC last week for financing the sale of shoulder held missiles to take down U.S. aircraft is just one very small example.

This was an illegal money-changing operation and had nothing to do with diamonds except the crook happened to be in the diamond trade. For more info check out:

http://www.jckgroup.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA317142&industry=Security&industryid=687&webzine=jck&publication=jck

[narby]

But evolutionists have suggested it would require millions of years to reproduce the precise set of circumstances.

This is why I stopped reading WND.

[harpseal]

I do love the idea of turning waste into oil at below the OPEC price. Of course should this catch on OPEC will simply lower their price per barrel for sufficient time to drive the competition out of business and or they will purchase all rights to the then uneconomical technology and withhold it from the market as they re-raise prices.

[boris]

"Diamond is not only the hardest substance known, it also has the highest thermal conductivity."

Higher than gold? Surprising if true, which I doubt.

--Boris

[null and void]

I'd think they at least anneal out the nitrogen caused yellowing. Probably wouldn't hurt to add some boron to the feedstocks to make 'em bluer, too.

[harpseal]

Now I would not completely dismiss diamods as part of armor. Perhaps as part of a laminate with other materials.

[harpseal]

Now I would not completely dismiss diamods as part of armor. Perhaps as part of a laminate with other materials.

[Centurion2000]

Imagine having a diamond chef's knife whose edge was atomicly-sharp, and would never need honing

Actually there is a company out there that is generating vapor deposition diamond coatings. One of the things they described was similar to what you were looking for.

[boris]

I take it back. Amazing:

317 W/m-K gold
2200 W/m-K diamond

[null and void]

So, I wonder what will replace the diamond as the ultimate token of devotion?

Perhaps a better person to ask would be Kobe...

[Bernard Marx]

If you smack a diamond ring wrong, it will shatter.

There are planes of weakness in diamond just as there are in sheets of mica. The materials an be separated easily in those directions. There's a huge difference between "hardness" and "toughness." Jade, an amphibole, is much tougher than diamond although it's a lot softer. It has an interlocking fibrous structure that makes it very tough -- a fact primitive peoples figured out quickly which made it popular for use in early tools.

[Soliv123]

Diamonds and the child solder wars of Africa. You are right on to mention the econoterrorism of the Diamond industry. Thugs will take over a region of Africa and will keep the Diamond mine open to sell the gem stones on the open market. With the profit, they will buy more guns to do more destruction. I wonder if the moralistic hippies of the liberal left will tell women to stop wanting diamonds? After all, it is the hippy chicks who are against fur coats for women. If it is wrong to kill a mink for a fur coat, is it OK for 15 year old kids in Africa to kill each other in a rebel diamond mine region, for the diamonds? And what about the vegetarians? If it is wrong to kill a lamb for the dinner table to eat a steak, is it wrong for kids in Africa to kill each other for diamonds just so a woman may look pretty and impressive with a big rock.?! I have heard that Jennifer Anninston and other "Chicks" are wearing Moissanite gems to various big deal parties. I think women will be more and more into land. I have seen the trend. Real estate value keeps increasing. Women like to be given presants. Especially, presants which increase in value.

[CollegeRepublican]

I wonder what's holding up synthetic crude?

Nothing. Check out www.changingworldtech.com

[dfwgator]

Technology puts an end to the endless african civil wars and cruelty... film at 11.

The leaders of these companies are liable to get a bullet to the brain if they don't watch out.

[Bernard Marx]

This is the easiest way to distinguish between CZ and diamond. Visually they are similar with approximately the same refractive index and dispersive properties. Both are isometric so are not double-refractive. CZ is about 5 times as dense as diamond but that's no help when the stone is mounted.

Interestingly, Moissanite passes the thermal conductivity test and might be misidentified as diamond. But it's strongly double-refractive and a trained gemologist can see doubling of the facet junctions when the stone is viewed in the right direction (the direction of single refraction is generally oriented perpindicular to the large table facet on the stone, so you have to know "how" to look for doubling).