Man-Made Diamonds: Discovering the Synthetic Counterpart

The diamond is the hardest known natural substance on the planet. Treasured as gemstones by almost every culture, 49% of all diamonds originate from southern Africa. Diamonds are also essential for use as parts in tools, particularly drill bits and any tools used for engraving and cutting glass. The popularity of these gems has caused growth in the world economy also because of the high demand for them by almost all markets.

Diamonds are used for many industrial purposes, popular for their physical properties such as their extreme hardness and high thermal conductivity. This explains why they are mined out of volcanic pipes. It is in high temperatures that diamonds are formed. And with this knowledge, man has now figured out how to re-create the formation of synthetic diamonds.

Synthetic diamonds are made via chemical means in places much like factories or laboratories. They share the same physical hardness of original diamonds and are also used in industrial applications. Synthetic diamonds also have the potential to be used in the fields of electronics and medicine. This is, of course, at a much cheaper cost since they are not valued as high as their original counterparts.

Synthetic diamonds are sometimes referred to as manufactured or artificial diamonds. So to the buying market they are considered to be "fakes". However, a synthetic diamond actually has the same properties of an original diamond and is considered to be of higher quality.