Re: Market for imperfect gemstones?

On Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:25:57 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry Graver
<mgerrasch@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Hello Everyone,


I just saw a topic on the Discovery Channel about the company in
Fla. called Gemesis, which by the way has been producing manmade
diamonds for a few years now, has found a way to produce a diamond
that is 100 times harder then a natrual diamond. They can grow the new
stone which is about five carats in six hours. These stones are going
to be more suited for cutting tools and also electronic components,
but it won't be long before manmade diamonds are able to compete in
the market place. The company already grows a yellow diamond that is
nondetectable from a real one. Diamond prices have been falling for
about a year as Russia and Canada bring top quality stones into the
market. It's only a mater of time before Debeers is going to lose it's
monopoly on diamonds.

Mark

Recheck your data. The Gemesis stones aren't 100 times harder than natural
diamonds. They are slightly harder in use, and tougher (more difficult to
chip). This may equate to many times longer life in cutting tools, but it's not
quite that much harder in actual hardness (there is a difference between
hardness and toughness.) The currently well known Gemesis stones, the yellow
ones, are very much the same as natural diamonds in hardness and toughness, and
are marketed to the jewelry trade. So far, they don't yet grow colorless ones
economically (costs more than natural stones, still, to get them colorless,
though that is likely to change)

The stones you refer to as harder, are that way because, like the ones grown
usually as thin films by Chemical vapor deposition, they are polycrystaline
(lots of very tiny intergrown crystals, rather than one single one). Diamond
varies in hardness and toughness according to the direction in the crystal, so a
mass of many random orientated crystals looks like the hardest and toughest
directions at the same time, in all directions. That accounts for the greater
apparent hardness and toughness. But that 100 times factor is not quite
accurate, I think. The basic crystal lattice structure of the synthetics
remains the same, so the main difference is that polycrystaline nature. That's
important, of course, for cutting tools. But do also keep in mind that the
likelyhood of that type of stone being used for gems is minimal, simply because
that greater hardness and toughness would mean they'd be almost impossible to
cut and polish into gems by conventional means (which relies on the avarage
harder nature of a random diamond grit over the crystal being cut, in the same
way the polycrystaline stones are harder overall.) The effort and time needed
to cut and polish polycrystaline stones, if they can grown them transparent at
all, or at least economically, would likely offset the lower cost of the
crystal. At least for the short term future. Who knows what will happen longer
term.

Don't discount the difficulty in growing colorless stones over the yellow ones.
It's substantial, not a trivial difference. And for the record, both Russia and
Canada are not new sources. They've been around for a while. It's easy to say
DeBeers will loose it's monopoly, but that's been forcast for 20 years, and
hasn't happened yet. Among other things, it's not in the interest of the
independent sellers to compete too much with DeBeers, as that would lower the
prices they can get for their own stones. DeBeers marketing models are changing
to fit the times, and they are likely to remain a force for some time.

Most likely, the effects of synthetic diamond will be strongest in the technical
fields, such as electronics. There, the potential for the stuff is enormous,
the pressure to develop such materials is strong, and the possible advances in
electronics that such material might offer are substantial enough that such uses
are likely to not only offer much more incentive than the gem market, but also
much more potential financial gain for producers. Indeed, most of the research
into synthetic diamond production seems aimed in that direction.

By the way, that Super Diamonds show on the Discovery Channel was fun and
interesting. But remember, like any media information source, there can be
errors of ommision or fact, and the shows tend to present the points of view
that will most advance their goal of being watched by a wide audience. That can
skew the data a bit. Remember that the show producers, though they may be
talking to scientists and researchers, are still TV producers and journalists,
not scientists themselves. If they're talking to the owners of companies
promoting their synthetics, guess what sort of point of view they're going to
get... Discovery Channel is usually pretty good, and this show is no
exception. But it's still journalism, with it's own agenda, And that agenda
is not always a totally impartial examination of all sides of an issue.

Peter
.

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