There are increasingly more connoisseurs of lab-grown stones in Russia lately

Timur Khakimov, Executive Director of DIATEC TRADING HOUSE, told Rough&Polished about the technologies for growing diamonds in the laboratory, about the types of natural and synthetic diamonds, as well as about the future prospects of the market for the man-created stones based on science and the LGD-jewellery.

What exactly is your junior company doing?

Our trading house is engaged in the cutting&polishing and sale of polished diamonds grown at one of the enterprises of the “Advanced Synthetic Research” R&D Centre using the HPHT method. It’s no secret that today, more than 95% of lab-grown diamonds are used in various industries in the form of powders, plates, lenses and anvils. Progress in science has allowed to control the process of producing diamonds in laboratory conditions where the stone has an almost perfect crystal lattice. Of course, this material is in demand in the electronic or optical industries. The jewellery industry does not stand aside and actively consumes lab-grown polished diamonds.

DIATEC is engaged in this field, which is just emerging in Russia. And it is just beginning to develop in the world as lab-grown diamonds account for about 2-3 percent of the total global diamond market. This is a fact that the demand in this market is growing quite rapidly.

Please tell us about your consumers.

Each product has its own target audience. Recently, jewellers and connoisseurs of polished diamonds have increasingly begun to contact us requesting to select lab-grown stones for a particular piece of jewellery. Today, we can satisfy any market need, whether it is a polished diamond for a future piece of jewellery or a customized jewellery piece created by our jewellers. We provide each polished diamond and diamond jewellery piece with a certificate issued by an independent gemological laboratory, which lists all the characteristics of the stone as it is done for a natural polished diamond.

There are increasingly more connoisseurs of lab-grown stones in Russia lately. A consumers’ choice of a polished lab-grown diamond is more often based on their understanding that if polished lab-grown diamonds are identical to natural ones and are much cheaper, why should they pay more? The buyers understand that for the money they want to spend to buy a natural diamond jewellery piece, they can buy the same product but with a polished diamond three times larger and often having better characteristics.

Is there any chance that lab-grown diamonds will gradually replace natural ones? So far, they exist as two separate markets, but in any case, they cannot avoid competition.

If you compare lab-grown and natural diamonds, there is no difference between them. Diamonds are formed deep in the Earth. It is generally accepted that formation of rough diamonds takes billions of years. Actually, this is not true. Their formation requires high pressure, high temperature, and some other physical and chemical conditions. The process of creating a natural diamond occurs at a depth of 100 km. At this depth, the temperature reaches 1 500^oC and the pressure is over 40,000 atmospheres, this is a high pressure and high temperature (HPHT) process. These conditions trigger the transition of carbon from graphite to diamond. This process is not very long. It takes billions of years for nature to deliver a diamond to such a depth from which a person can extract it. Diamonds are brought to the surface by kimberlite magma during volcanic eruptions, thus forming kimberlite pipes - the main deposits of rough diamonds. In short, the ‘journey’ of a diamond is too complicated and long. Mining is also time- and labour-consuming. For example, to recover a one-carat gem-quality diamond, it is necessary to process about 250 tonnes of ore.

To date, scientists have managed to accurately transfer the natural processes of creating diamonds to the laboratory conditions. Our diamonds are also made with a HPHT process. This method is similar to the natural geological conditions enabling the formation of diamonds, as I mentioned earlier, at a depth of more than 100 km in the bowels of the Earth. For this, very complex and expensive equipment is used. Of course, the knowledge and experience of technologists who monitor the synthesis and control the processes of growing the future diamonds also play a great, if not the main role in the creation of a diamond. A lab-grown diamond is identical to a natural one in all characteristics. They have exactly the same crystal lattice. Even the most experienced gemologist is not able to distinguish a natural polished diamond from a lab-grown one. The testing equipment used by jewellers to determine the polished diamond authenticity cannot distinguish a natural polished diamond from a lab-grown one, either. Only spectral analysis in a specialized laboratory is able to determine the origin of a stone, and such devices are not available at every laboratory.

The technologists of the “Advanced Synthetic Research” R&D Centre grow Type 2A diamonds at their laboratory, which are the purest ones. As for the classification of both natural and lab-grown diamonds, there are two main types of their chemical composition - Type 1 and Type 2.

And what the differences are?

These two types differ in their chemical and physical properties, which respectively has an effect on their price. Type 1 is the most common chemical type among polished diamonds. Type 1 diamonds contain nitrogen in their atomic lattice and about 95% of all gem-quality stones fall into this category. Their colour varies from almost colourless to light yellow. As I said above, our diamonds are Type 2A stones. There is practically no nitrogen in them and therefore, such diamonds are considered to be very rare in nature. Only 1-2% of the mined diamonds are of this type. Such natural diamonds are considered investment stones, and the most famous polished diamonds of this type are a 530-carat Cullinan diamond and a 105-carat Koh-i-Noor diamond. The technologies used by our R&D Centre’s specialists at our enterprise have already made it possible to set 2 world records in growing the synthetic diamonds. From a 50.39-carat diamond synthesized in November 2022, a gem-quality 16.04-carat diamond with high D and VS1 characteristics was cut and polished, and at the beginning of 2023, they succeeded in growing a 57.28-carat Type 2A diamond that is a pure single crystal without nitrogen atoms and any structural dislocations, which makes it possible to use such a diamond in the electronic or laser industry. These stones were examined at the Gemological Laboratory of the Moscow State University, and its experts confirmed the high characteristics of the polished diamond and the rough diamond submitted for testing.

That is, the prospects for the market of lab-grown diamonds are most favorable, aren’t they?

I believe that lab-grown diamonds are of a very high ethical value. While growing a stone at a laboratory, no damage is caused to nature as it happens when mining rough diamonds, for example, huge quarries or deep mines. Laboratory synthesis conditions do not jeopardize the life and health of people involved in the production of stones, and, at the same time, rough diamonds produced at the laboratory are also individual, because their growth is similar to how a stone grows in the bowels of the Earth, therefore, those who take good care of the environment like the jewellery made from such polished diamonds. We use “green” technologies called “Born Green” to grow our diamonds.

Buyers need to be explained and told what a lab-grown polished diamond is. Some diamond buyers believe that a natural stone is “alive” compared to its lab-grown counterpart. However, in my opinion, any stone is made “alive” by a cutter, polisher and a jeweller. They invest their talent, know-how, experience and much efforts to make a polished diamond shine with all its facets. There is a “Russian cut”, this is a kind of a brand and it is known all over the world. The Russian diamond cut has always been famous among European and American jewellery houses, and our company employs only highly qualified cutters and polishers having a great experience and skills in diamond cutting and polishing.

Advances in science are constantly improving our lives, and lab-grown diamonds are just one of many products created using up-to-date technologies. The success in the development of the lab-grown diamond market, like many other modern and high-tech products, depends on the marketing strategy used and on filling the gaps in consumer knowledge about a particular product.

Today, buyers of jewellery goods have a choice that we could not even imagine until recently. More consumers now purchase real polished diamonds with high characteristics.

What is happening now in the world of synthetic jewellery market and how successfully do the LGDs compete with the classic natural polished diamonds?

In the US jewellery market, major players such as De Beers launched their own brand of lab-grown diamonds, Lightbox, in 2018. As of 2020, the market share of lab-grown polished diamonds reached 3.5%. In 2021, this share was 5%, or $3.9 bn.

In my opinion, Russian jewellery brands that work with lab-grown diamonds should educate consumers. You know, sometimes even jewellers do not really understand the difference between a lab-grown diamond and moissanite or cubic zirconia. In a store, sellers often cannot really explain to buyers what a lab-grown diamond is, or even call cubic zirkonia or moissanite as polished diamonds. Consumers need to be explained how lab-grown diamonds are made, how they grow, as well as their incredible quality and value.

Now, pink diamonds and fancy colour diamonds in general that are very rare in nature, are in great demand on the market. Will scientific laboratories fill this demand in?

Yes, our technologists can predict the colour, mass, shape and purity of a stone they grow. The most popular among natural stones are light-blue colour stones that are formed when boron enters the crystal lattice. Due to the fact that boron atoms are lighter than carbon ones, extremely few of them are in the depths of the Earth and it is more difficult, loosely speaking, to ‘catch’ them during the diamond formation. But if boron particles get into the lattice, they are immediately noticeable. We can create these processes at the laboratory, and the stones can be deep rich blue or dark blue depending on the boron concentration. We can also make yellow diamonds. It is not possible to add nitrogen in its pure form, but if a certain amount of aluminum atoms or similar material atoms are added to nitrogen atoms, they built into the lattice and make it possible to get a yellow colour - from a light yellow colour to a saturated yellow one. Nitrogen atoms can be replaced and our stones can be coloured. There are a lot of technologies for the so-called ‘treatment’ of both natural and lab-grown diamonds - when we ‘improve’ the colour of stones. And in the future, this will allow us to get pink diamonds. We have already carried out a number of experiments to obtain ruby red and green diamonds ...

Technologies constantly improve our lives, and lab-grown polished diamonds are among the numerous products that are possible thanks to a cutting-edge technology. But their success, like the success of many other products, depends on educating the diamond consumers. Now, we have a choice that we could not have dreamed of a few years ago. It seems to me that the day will come very soon when lab-grown polished diamonds will shine brighter for consumers than mined polished diamonds. The success of lab-grown polished diamonds and other innovative products depends on customer awareness and brand transparency, and maybe in 10-15 years, people will no longer need to mine diamonds - who knows.

Galina Semyonova for Rough&Polished