According to Mr. Roscheisen, the new process will make it possible to manufacture large quantities of Type IIa diamond, a pure white material that represents 1 to 2 percent of all natural diamonds. Other manufacturers also make IIa-quality gems, but the Diamond Foundry team says it has developed a process that will be more effective at “growing” diamond material, layer by atomic layer, more quickly.

Diamonds are one of the many forms that carbon may take. Diamond Foundry researchers spent years developing a new manufacturing technique based on a plasma source with a new “shape” that is 10 times as powerful as what has previously been used by manufacturers of synthetic diamonds, Mr. Roscheisen said.

By modifying the shape of the plasma field to what he described as a pancake, the group was able to make the reaction that formed the diamond structure more efficient, and thus create diamond material more rapidly. The intensity of the plasma means the company can create pure diamond material at about 150 times the rate at which the industry now produces it.

“This means we can grow 100 percent pure diamond of white color” at a rate that compares to the speed at which it is mined, Mr. Roscheisen said.

The process begins with a very thin slice of natural diamond as a substrate and then increases the size of the original diamond material by adding more layers of carbon atoms. Mr. Roscheisen said experts in scientific laboratories would be able to determine that the diamond was synthetic because it would resemble a kind of diamond that appears rarely in nature. Seeing the diamonds in large quantities would be a tip-off to their origin, but not seeing one individually, he said.