Laboratory grown diamonds - how are they grown? Bring Diamonds shows us how...
I was delighted to visit one of the very rare diamond growing plants in the UK - Bring Diamonds, in Newcastle. Invited by the 3 innovative co-founders, Bring Diamonds is a real technological wonder from the North East & it was illuminating to see first hand how diamonds are grown.
- LGDs are grown in a number of special chambers or reactors - the process described below is called Chemical Vapour Despositon (CVD) which is the most cutting edge technological method to produce diamonds.
- As can be seen in image with red and blue pipes, methane gas is pumped into the chambers and heated to 3,000 F. The diamond wafers contain diamond / graphite seeds and are exposed to intense heat and lasers to mimic the earths natural geological processes to create a diamond.
- The methane is heated and forms a vapor - the diamond seeds slowly form into a plasma and the rough grows molecule by molecule, layer by layer, as can be seen in the porthole image.
- After a period of 5-6 weeks a mass of diamond “rough” is produced - with the same molecular structure as a mined diamond - tetrahedral double bonded Carbon.
- As can be seen in the image with the screen, laser technology can employed to inspect the rough and harvest any diamond seeds or remove any excess.
The rough is then ready to be send to the polishing factory and cut like any other diamond to reveal its inner fire, brilliance and scintillation, which we all know and so love! #shineon!
