The first carat-plus CVD-grown diamond was graded by GIA this month. Earlier chemical vapor deposition technology let produce only diamonds of one-carat size and less. A lot of them were manufactured by Apollo Diamond company based in Boston. The origin of this very pear-shaped gem is unknown, still it can boast to be 1.05 carat in size.
The news about lab-grown diamond was revealed by Gemological Institute of America in its monthly email newsletter in May 2010. It was said there that the diamond stone was submitted to GIA for grading. The lab-grown diamond was identified as G-colored diamond (near-colorless) with clarity grade equal "I1" (there were some inclusions in the gem and some fractures were found along the girdle).
In addition to color and grading, GIA specialists checked the diamond for fluorescence presence and none of it has been found. After exposing a lab-grown diamond to conventional long and short ultra violet wave radiation, they indicated that the gemstone belongs to the type IIa of diamonds.
Nevertheless, CVD technology is developing rather quickly these days and most likely it will reach great results in the nearest future. While CVD-grown diamonds are mostly of small size, high temperature high pressure (HTHP) technology, which is also used for diamond growing, have been creating diamonds of various colors and sizes (up to 5 carats) for several years already. Such diamond stones are available at New Age Diamonds, Gemesis company, Chatham and some others. These manufacturers are among those to use HTHP technology.
Never matter what diamond to choose, either CVD-grown of the one created with the usage of HTHP technology, the result will be the same - real flawless diamond.
Images in this post are the courtesy of it's respective owners: Apollo Diamond Inc.
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