Lab-Grown Diamonds

Lab-grown diamond technology for industrial uses has been around for over 50 years, but within the last decade there have been impressive developments in quality and price, meaning these lab-grown stones can now be used in jewelry, too. Altering the “recipe” in the lab also means that lab-grown diamonds are available in different colors, including beautiful blues and pinks.

Laboratory-grown diamonds and natural diamonds both consist of pure carbon in the same cubic crystalline form. The difference between lab-grown diamonds and natural diamonds can be distinguished by an expert using a high-tech machine—but not by the naked eye.

Both mined and lab-grown diamonds are made of pure carbon that is transformed into sparkling cubic crystalline stones. While their chemical foundation gives lab-grown diamonds the same optical properties as natural diamonds, lab-grown diamonds have no intrinsic rarity. Formed over millennia, natural diamonds acquire their scintillating shapes from the pressure of being compacted deep within the earth’s crust. Because of this, all of the natural diamonds that will ever exist have already been created making them forever rarities. Laboratory-grown diamonds, on the other hand, can be produced limitlessly.

Are lab-grown diamonds available in different colors?

Lab-grown diamonds come in a wide array of hues—whether you’re looking for a stone that’s classic white, blushing with pink, or as beautifully blue as a cloudless sky.

Diamond BAYOU offers an exclusive assortment of lab-grown diamond jewelry from Lightbox. Lightbox creates their beautiful colored stones by adding a gas mix to the CVD reactor and combining this with treatments that are incorporated at the end of the synthesis process. The result is stones rich with color, which would be extremely rare and expensive in natural diamonds.

It all starts with a seed. Made from a tiny lab-grown diamond, the seed follows one of two processes: CVD or HPHT. Chemical Vapor Deposition, or CVD, takes the seed and puts it into a plasma reactor chamber where a mix of carbon-rich gasses are added at very low pressure. Microwaves are then introduced to heat the gasses and generate plasma. As the temperature climbs over several thousand degrees, the gas molecules break apart, making way for carbon atoms to bond to the seed one layer at a time.

The High Pressure High Temperature (HPHT) method mimics the conditions of natural diamond creation by placing seeds in a large mechanical press and applying extreme pressure and high temperature to the carbon that is present. The seed acts as a guide for the lattice of carbon (that will soon become the diamond) to grow layer by layer within a matter of days until the desired carat weight is achieved.

Unlike lab-grown diamonds, simulated diamonds are not diamonds. While they have a similar appearance to diamonds, simulants are made from seed materials like glass or cubic zirconia. This fact makes diamond simulants like moissanite lack the hardness and optical properties of lab-grown diamonds. As time goes on, simulants become much more susceptible to wear-and-tear and diminished sparkle.

Some lab-grown diamonds undergo grading and certification similar to natural diamonds by adhering to the the 4Cs of cut, clarity, color and carat. After being sent to a gem lab that specializes in grading diamonds, lab-grown diamonds are graded independently by several of the lab's gemologists. Afterward, the individual grades are compiled and compared to give the lab-grown diamond its final grade.

Yes. The difference between lab-grown and natural diamonds can always be detected by a diamond expert with specialized technical equipment.

When purchasing Lightbox lab-grown diamond jewelry on our site, the quality is guaranteed by the presence of a tiny inscription. Because Lightbox lab-grown diamonds have the same sparkle and visual characteristics as a natural diamond, the presence of this inscription makes it easier to identify lab-grown diamonds larger than 0.2ct and confirms that the stones were manufactured by Lightbox and meet their high quality standards. This inscription is invisible to the naked eye but it can easily be seen with a 10X magnifying loupe.

Unlike the price of natural diamonds, which is determined by a stone’s unique characteristics and rarity, lab-grown diamonds can be priced uniformly per carat. Lab-grown diamonds also have the benefit of being priced significantly lower than natural diamonds since their production capacity is unlimited.