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Apollo Has Landed?
Foreword: On September 9, 2003 Wired magazine broke an incredible
story about a new type of synthetic diamond that would, in theory,
revolutionize the way people buy diamonds and at what price.
Assertion: Mr. Bryant Linares,
(President of Apollo Diamond, the company that has invented the
technology) stated in his interview that Apollo has patented a process
to grow diamonds. The tag line for this new product is the C.V.D.
diamond. C.V.D. stands for Chemical Vapor Deposition. The idea,
according to Mr. Linares, is “you must first determine the
exact combination of temperature, gas composition, and pressure—a
‘sweet spot’—that results in the formation of
a single crystal.” Apollo states that they have discovered
that “sweet spot.” The Wired magazine article goes on
to paint a picture of $5.00 per carat, non-detectable, synthetic
diamonds soon to be on the market. The article continues, this could
potentially break the iron grip that DeBeers has had on the diamond
industry for over a century and awake us from our slumber to affordable
diamonds for everyone! Happy ending? End of story? Not quite.
Reality: Not mentioned in the
article by Joshua Davis from Wired magazine is that the product
they are producing is averaging only 2 millimeters thick! That’s
the exact thickness of a nickel—a far cry from the typical
size diamond preferred by the diamond-buying public. Unless you’ve
got a craving for a 1/20th of a carat engagement ring, there is
no Utopia here or expected any time in the near future. Another
thing not widely reported is that when they are able to get slightly
larger crystals, they tend to be brown. The American buying public
is primarily a buyer of whites. Apollo’s solution to the brown
color is to anneal (bake) the diamonds after step one and bake the
nitrogen and boron right out like a ring around the collar. Apollo
also likes taking credit for discovering the “sweet spot,”
when in reality chemical vapor deposition of carbon atoms from hydrogen-rich,
carbon-containing gas was invented in the 1980’s. The process
has been used to deposit thin polycrystalline diamond films on cutting
tools. One of the last claims to fame for Apollo’s C.V.D.
rocks is the potential that they will be undetectable from the naturals.
Not hardly. Natural diamonds occur in nature, forming paired nitrogen
atoms. Synthetics have only single nitrogen atoms. Also, all the
samples examined so far fluoresce a very weak yellow-orange under
long-wave UV (ultra-violet) light; moderate yellow-orange in short
wave UV and strong red fluorescence under high energy UV light.
It’s true that man (just like in the 50’s) has the capability
to grow diamonds, but they are nowhere near the time when they will
be able to mount said white diamond into a Tiffany setting and sell
it to the public on a widespread commercial level.
If that day ever comes, you’ll be the first to know.
by Fred Cuellar,
author of the best-selling book "How to Buy a Diamond." More questions?
Ask the Diamond Guy®
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