Mandmade Diamonds Look the Same, Cost Less

Sept. 25 -- They are dazzling, outrageously expensive and the very symbol of wealth and romance.

As the product of millions of years of natural forces, diamonds have a special mystique. But now, scientists at two U.S. companies are manufacturing that mystique.

In an industrial warehouse outside Boston, scientists at one company have perfected a complex process for making diamonds in a lab. The stones are so perfect they can fool the experts.

"They simply cannot tell cannot tell the difference," says Robert Linares, founder and chairman of Apollo Diamond. "And that's because they are diamond."

Finding the ‘Sweet Spot’

Linares and his team start by taking a tiny diamond wafer less than one-tenth of a carat — the "seed" — and placing it inside a vacuum chamber. When carbon gas is added, the carbon atoms stick to the surface of the seed, and it grows into a larger diamond of up to three carats.

After only a few days, it comes out as an ugly blackened nugget. But when polished and cut, the resulting diamond is indistinguishable from a naturally mined diamond, both chemically and aesthetically.

"It's groundbreaking technology," says professional gemologist and author Antoinette Matlins. "The new Apollo process has taken the art, if you will, of growing a diamond in a laboratory to a whole new level."

Linares has been trying to make diamonds this way for 30 years. It took that long before he and his team found the right combination of conditions, what he and his son Bryant call the "sweet spot."

And when you hit the sweet spot? "You get a pure and perfect diamond," says Bryant with a smile.

Apollo diamonds are expected to hit the market in early 2004 and will sell for about 20 percent less than mined diamonds.

A Fraction of the Cost of a Natural Stone

A thousand miles away in Florida, a company called Gemesis is already mass-producing "yellow" diamonds using a very different technology — by putting carbon under heat and pressure, just like in nature.