What is a lab grown diamond?
A lab grown diamond is chemically, physically, and optically identical to a mined diamond. Diamond is precious gem stone and conditions in which a mined diamond is grown below ground are mimicked in the laboratories making it possible to create beautiful stone. There are mainly two processes that are used to grow a diamond in the lab:
1-HPHT (High Pressure High Temperature) 2- CVD (Carbon Vapor Deposition)
Although the grown diamonds have been around us for almost six decades, with technological advancement it is only up till recently that they are grown in consumer-acceptable quality. Initially, lab grown diamonds were available in lower color with many inclusions making it unappealing to jewelers and end users and hence were used mostly for the industrial purposes. With the improvement in technology, it is now possible to grow diamonds in colors as good as D. Apart from white diamonds they are also available in fancy colors such as yellow, pink, blue, grown and many more.
Nowadays, everyone has seen lab grown diamond or at-least heard about it. But very few people knows about the processes applied to create lab grown diamond. There are two methods of creating diamond in the lab HPHT & CVD. Even though the end product is beautiful diamond. There are significant differences between both types of lab grown diamond.
Here is picture for you to compare rough diamond shapes. On the left is CVD, Right is natural mined diamond rough and bottom one is HPHT rough diamond.
(1) HPHT (High Pressure High Temperature)
HPHT is older method to create lab grown diamond in the lab. HPHT is acronym of High Pressure High Temperature. In this process diamond seed is placed in the chamber and high pressure and high temperature is applied to create lab grown diamond.
(2) CVD (Carbon Vapor Deposition)
CVD is newer method compare to HPHT. It has been in use since past 4 decades. Diamonds created using CVD are type IIa diamond. In this process carbon seed is placed in the vacuumed chamber and then due to high temperature in the chamber, carbon rich gases turns in to plasma. Bits of carbon released during this process gets deposited on carbon seed. Which grows rough diamond around it.