Synthetic Diamond

A synthetic diamond, also called a laboratory-grown or man-made diamond, is a diamond produced in a controlled technological process rather than formed by geological processes and mined. It is made of the same pure carbon crystallized in an isotropic three-dimensional form as natural diamond and has identical chemical and physical properties, unlike diamond simulants. Systematic research began in the 1940s in the United States, Sweden and the Soviet Union and culminated in the first reproducible synthesis in 1953; the high pressure high temperature and chemical vapor deposition methods that followed still dominate production, and detonation synthesis entered the market in the late 1990s. Synthetic diamond is widely used in abrasives, cutting and polishing tools and heat sinks, and an estimated 98 percent of industrial-grade diamond demand is supplied by it.