LifeGem
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A LifeGem synthetic diamond may not be appropriate to use for an engagement ring, but LifeGem has a truly unique approach to making man-made diamonds. LifeGem will make custom diamonds from carbon samples of deceased family members. Marketed as a “diamond tribute for you and your family,” the company gets the carbon sample from cremated ashes or the hair from a deceased and use the carbon sample as the seed to create a synthetic diamond.
LifeGem was founded in 1999, and is headquartered in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. They also have offices in Europe, United Kingdom, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, and Canada. LifeGem collaborates with funeral homes and cremation service businesses in those countries to offer their unique synthetic diamonds.
LifeGem uses High Pressure-High Temperature (HPHT) to make their diamonds. Most man-made or synthetic diamonds are usually marketed as being less expensive than natural, mined diamonds, but that is not the case with LifeGem, which uses the emotional and sentimental value of its diamonds to command prices much higher than natural diamonds.
Learn more about Lifegem diamonds at the company’s website: http://www.lifegem.com/
Tairus
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Tairus
Tairus is a Joint Venture between the Russian Academy of Sciences (Siberian Branch) and Tairus (Thailand) Co. LTD of Bangkok. Tairus makes a variety of synthetic gemstones using the high pressure, high temperature process, including emerald, ruby, sapphire, and Beryl. Synthetic diamond production is a recent development for the company.
The Tairus synthetic diamonds are primarily Fancy Yellow colors including Vivid Yellow, Orange, and Cognac. White and blue colored diamonds are much more difficult to produce and the company has not yet perfected the production process.
Learn more about Tairus cultured diamonds at the company’s website: www.tairus.com
Other Synthetic Diamonds: Apollo Diamond, Chatham, Adia Diamonds, Gemesis, New Age Diamonds, LifeGem
Gemisis
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Gemisis
Gemesis, based in Sarasota, Florida, was started in 1996 by retired U.S. Brigadier General Carter Clarke after he purchased diamond glowing machines from the Russians. The Russians had used the machines to make diamonds for its space program. Gemesis diamonds are produced using two dozen or so high-pressure, high-temperature crystal growing chambers to create beautiful and almost perfect fancy-colored diamonds, range in color from red and pink, to blue and green and even bright yellow and orange.
At the present time, Gemesis does not offer clear, white color diamonds that are considered by many for use in traditional diamond settings.
Learn more about Gemesis cultured diamonds at the company’s website: www.gemesis.com
Other Synthetic Diamonds: Apollo Diamond, Tairus, Chatham, Adia Diamonds, New Age Diamonds, LifeGem
Apollo Diamond
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Apollo Diamond, Inc., founded in 2000, has its headquarters in Framingham, and diamond making facility in Boston, MA. Apollo Diamond uses a modified version of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) to grow their nearly flawless, colorless, single crystal diamonds, which the company first offered to consumers in 2003. Apollo Diamond will soon be selling blue, pink and black diamonds as well. Apollo also produces diamond wafers and crystals for the optoelectronics and nanotechnology industries, in addition to synthetic diamonds to the consumer diamond market.
The synthetic diamonds produced by Apollo match or exceed the purity and beauty of the finest naturally mined diamond. Apollo synthetic diamonds are so much like mined diamonds that even machines developed by the diamond industry to distinguish synthetic from natural diamonds can have trouble telling them apart.
Learn more about Apollo Diamond, Inc. at the company’s website: www.apollodiamond.com
Other Synthetic Diamonds: Tairus, Chatham, Adia Diamonds, Gemesis, New Age Diamonds, LifeGem
Chatham
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Chatham
Chatham has been making synthetic rubies, sapphires, alexandrites, and opals for over 60 years and has recently creating synthetic diamonds using the high pressure, high temperature process. Chatham diamonds come in shades of yellow, pink and blue.
Learn more about Chatham cultured diamonds at the company’s website: www.chatham.com
Other Synthetic Diamonds: Apollo Diamond, Tairus, Adia Diamonds, Gemesis, New Age Diamonds, LifeGem
Adia Diamonds
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Adia Diamonds
Adia Diamonds, based in Battle Creek, Michigan, uses the high pressure, high temperature (HPHT) process to make gem-quality synthetic diamonds. The Adia brand of synthetic diamonds are make in a laboratory in Europe and then cut in Antwerp, Belgium. Currently, Adia diamonds are available through its only retail partner, Pearlman’s Jewelers, and online at their website: www.adiadiamonds.com. Adia Diamonds’ laboratory-created diamonds come in white, yellow and blue colors.
Learn more about Adia Diamonds at the company’s website: www.adiadiamonds.com
Other Synthetic Diamonds: Apollo Diamond, Tairus, Chatham, Gemesis, New Age Diamonds, LifeGem
Synthetics Diamonds
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Synthetic diamonds, also called lab-grown diamonds, lab-created diamonds, manufactured diamonds and cultured diamonds, have been around for decades. General Electric has been producing synthetic diamonds for industrial purposes for years. But until recent technological developments, these industrial diamonds were well below gem-quality and were too small to be cut for use in jewelry. Twenty-first century technology made it possible to produce pure, colorless laboratory grown diamonds that are virtually indistinguishable from mined diamonds, but cost much less than natural diamonds of similar quality.
Synthetic diamonds has all the same physical, chemical and optical qualities of natural diamonds. The only difference is that natural diamonds are formed hundreds of miles below the surface of the Earth, under high temperature and pressure over millions of years, and synthetic diamonds are formed under the same temperature and pressure conditions in a laboratory in only days. High quality synthetic diamonds look so much like real diamonds that they can only be detected using infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray spectroscopy or other specialized testers.
Natural diamonds can be completely colorless and colored diamonds are actually rare. However, most synthetic diamonds will have a slightly yellowish hue to them and color synthetic diamonds are easier to make than colorless ones.
Synthetic gem-quality diamonds are created using one of two different methods, which will create slightly different types of man-made diamonds.
One method is High Pressure-High Temperature (HPHT), which simulate the conditions that create natural diamonds. The HPHT method uses large and heavy presses produce high pressures and high temperatures to compress carbon material to create diamonds. HPHT, pinoneered in the 1950’s by General Electric (GE), is the first method developed to produce synthetic diamonds and is still the most widely used method today due to its relative low cost.
The other method is the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method, originally developed in the late 1980’s, uses a chemical reaction to rain carbon on top of a seed diamond to grow a real diamond layer by layer. The synthetic diamond is then separated from the seed.
Apollo Diamond, Tairus, Chatham, Adia Diamonds, Gemesis, New Age Diamonds and LifeGem are some of the laboratory grown synthetic diamonds currently available on the market. General Electric, Sumitomo Electric, and De Beers also make synthetic diamonds – but these diamonds are used for industrial purposes and not used for the jewelry business.
Here is an overview of these synthetic diamonds currently on the market: Apollo Diamond, Tairus, Chatham, Adia Diamonds, Gemesis, New Age Diamonds and LifeGem.
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