The booming market for lab-grown diamonds

In just two years, the production of lab-created gems has gone from 350,000 to 4.2 million carats, according to a study by Bonas & Company Diamond Brokers and Consultants. To put that in context, 150.1 million carats were extracted from mines in 2017.

Two methods are currently used to reproduce the conditions in which diamonds form naturally in Earth’s mantle: high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) and chemical vapour deposition (CVD). Developed in the 1950s, HPHT was used initially in the United States and the Soviet Union. This technique involves compressing a pure form of graphite, using hydraulic pressure while simultaneously heating the mineral to a temperature of about 1,400 °C in a cubic press. The carbon in the graphite then crystallises to transform it into a diamond.

Applied since the 1990s, CVD is used to “grow” diamonds. The process begins by taking either a natural diamond substrate or a substrate from a previous growth as a “seed” and injecting methane and hydrogen to provide the bricks that are essential to deposit carbon in diamond form. A plasma is created within the deposition chamber, using a microwave generator. The energy from the microwave plasma is used to dissociate carbon from methane, and atomic hydrogen from hydrogen. The carbon in diamond form adheres to the diamond “seed”, making it grow layer by layer. These lab-grown diamonds can then be used in the rough or cut and polished into CVD plates.

Lab-grown vs. mined diamond

The extensive development of these two diamond production techniques has created stiff competition for the natural gem. LakeDiamond, a scale-up from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), specializes in the CVD process. Founded in 2014, this promising young company has developed a technique for growing ultra-pure diamonds in a laboratory for industrial applications. Mehdi Naamoun, director of Diamond Development Operations and head of Power Electronics at LakeDiamond, says that its diamonds offer higher intrinsic value. “Natural diamonds incorporate impurities as they develop. Therefore, you actually have to remove a large amount of material to get a pure diamond, while our diamonds are 100% pure.”

Extracting natural diamonds has other drawbacks, including environmental impact, mining conditions and political implications. The mining industry has been accused of extracting “blood diamonds” — those used to finance civil wars, as in Sierra Leone in 1991. “Our diamonds are perfectly ethical and eco-friendly,” says Mehdi Naamoun. Furthermore, experts estimate that due to the high level of global production diamond resources will be depleted by 2025 or 2030. Scarcity is already a threaten in the main diamond producing countries, including Russia, South Africa, Botswana, Australia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which together account for nearly three-quarters of global production. Given this imminent depletion, lab-grown gems offer the industry a welcome alternative.

Mehdi Naamoun working on one of LakeDiamondʼs Micro-Wave Chemical Vapor Deposition (MWCVD) reactors

Ultra-pure diamond for high tech applications

The diamonds produced by LakeDiamond are used in four ways: laser-power beaming for conducting heat and transferring data, micromechanical systems such as in watch parts, biomedical captors and sensors, and electronic components for high-power operations. All the diamonds used in these sectors have been grown using the CVD method because the quality is superior. In addition, significant research is being conducted to find ways of gradually replacing the silicon in electronic devices with diamonds. The company is currently working on manufacturing watch components made entirely of diamonds. “And we occasionally have projects in high-end jewellery,” Mehdi Naamoun adds.

Will future jewellery be made from lab-created diamonds? Even if jewellers have reacted conservatively thus far, the times are clearly changing. Artificial diamonds are making their way into the industry, as reflected in a venture recently revealed by De Beers. “As it takes millions of years for the earth to thrust natural diamonds to the surface, jewellers have always pushed the rarity argument,” says Mehdi Naamoun. “But big industry names like De Beers, the world’s largest mined diamond producer, are now moving into the market of lab-grown diamonds.” The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has already amended the definition of diamonds in its Jewelry Guides. Previously, a diamond was “a natural mineral consisting essentially of pure carbon crystallized in the isometric system”, but now the word “natural” has been dropped. “This change marks a turning point. It means that man-made diamonds are now recognized as ‘real’,” says Mehdi Naamoun. “No longer is a distinction being made between man-made and natural diamonds”. This shift promises an even shinier and longer-lasting future for lab-grown diamonds.

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