A Step Toward the Diamond Age

An anonymous reader writes "Carnegie Institution researchers have learned to produce 10-carat, half-inch thick diamonds at rates of about 100 micrometers per hour, which in the diamond biz is blazingly fast. And these aren't cruddy, yellow diamonds either, but gem-quality stones. The goal: A 300 carat beast in whatever shape they want."

Comments

Re:Excellent

[KiloByte]

Also, the price of diamonds is the result of biggest marketing scams of the century. It's pretty much only the last 100-150 years when they were promoted as the #1 gem in jewelry. In ancient/medieval/renaissance times, diamonds weren't held in that much esteem -- coloured gems like rubys were considered more valuable.

Knocking off the price of diamonds is a great thing. I couldn't care less for jewelry, and without the artificially inflated price, we'll be able to use one of the best materials when it comes to hardness, certain conducting properties and so on. Similarily, you can coat connectors with a thin layer of gold to improve them, but it's an expensive thing to do because people tend to hog all gold reserves for monetary purposes.

The many possibilities

[mister_tim]

I saw a documentary on TV last year about a firm that is now 'growing' diamonds - sounded similar to this. Anyway, they were growing them at an incredible rate and they were completely flawless (although i don't know that they were able to specify a size).

On the show, they also talked to a rep from De Beers and a diamond merchant. They basically said that the grown diamonds were almost too good. Despite being a bibt worried about it, they seemed like they would adapt to the new environment. De Beers marketing strategy against something like that would be to promote the classical beauty of natural diamonds, or something like that - basically, advertise the 'snob' value of classically mined diamonds, even if they are less perfect.

On a separate note, I am looking forward to advances in Teflon.

I remember Dr Karl Kruszelnicki (Australians would know who he is) talking at my High School during our final year. Someone posed the old favourite question, "if nothing sticks to teflon, how come it sticks to the frying pan?". Apart from his answer, he did one of his trade-mark tangential replies and said that teflon is soft and therefore scracthes easily, but if you could combine teflon with diamonds, then you'd have a surface that nothing sticks to and that wouldn't scrartch. Of course, diamonds are too expensive for that.

So, with the rise of grown diamonds, I look forward to many advances in easy to use cooking gear.

Thank you for your time.

Re:The many possibilities

[viking099]

This was a very interesting article and has made me afraid of buying diamonds. It's like buying a car and having it depreciate faster than the stock market crash.


Very few diamonds have any resale value. Only high profile (the Hope diamond, royal jewels, etc) or "fancy" (pink, bright yellow, black, etc) stones have any investment value. For most of those kinds of stones, you'd wind up paying more for the history of the stone than the stone itself.

Everyday people will rarely is ever see any positive return on their diamond purchase. The second-hand diamond market is nearly nonexistant. If you don't believe me, go to your local pawn shop and see how much they'll give you for a diamond ring.

If you're buying a diamond ring, you should go into it knowing that it will have very little monetary value once you've purchased it. You should purchase it for the pleasure that the recipient will have from getting it. Despite their negative reputation and horrid investment value, they're still pretty and have emotional value.

A good time to postulate?

[jigyasubalak]

That every 18 months the maximum growable size of an artificial diamond will double.

--A La Moore's Law

Blood Diamonds and de Beers

[Demerara]

Slashdotters who regularly vent their anger at Micro$oft's monopoly should read about the diamond industry, monopoly and de Beers.

Unlke MS, the diamond trade costs lives. Sierra Leone, Libera and other West African countries are in ruins because of conflict diamonds. A good book is Blood Diamonds which tells the story of how gems destroyed Sierra Leone.

So, roll on artifical gems I say.

Re:Excellent

[nickco3]

It doesn't matter. Some other rare thing will replace the diamond and nobody will want diamonds anymore (except for industrial purposes)

Or, perhaps diamonds will be household items and practically everywhere? The Queen of England's jewelry collection contains aluminium pieces that were fantastically valuable when they were originally given to Queen Victoria. Today, mass-produced aluminium jewelry is so cheap it is normally described as 'imitation'.

Re:They'll get their grants revoked

[Andy_R]

That's just one of it's impressive properties:

Diamond is the best heat conductor known to man, if long thin cylindrical diamonds were available, they would be in huge demand to pipe heat out of CPUs.

Diamonds are ridiculously strong when used in composites, if you thought plain old glass-fibre and carbon fire were strong, simply replace the glass or carbon with diamond, and you have a strength to weight ratio that is unheard of.

Diamonds can be amazingly transparent and durable too of course.

If diamonds become cheap enough, our laptops will have diamond as the substrate for the chips, as heat-pipes, as reinforcement in the cases, and as the top layer of the screen.

As the song (nearly) says... Diamonds are a geek's best friend!