Wednesday, August 13, 2003

Diamond semiconductor age beckons

IN A FEW YEARS diamonds will lose their high values, according to an article appearing in yesterday's online edition of Wired.

The De Beers cartel, which has tightly controlled diamond prices through various means for more than a century, is alarmed at this prospect. But De Beers is not going to be able to win. Synthetic diamonds are here.

Two companies -- Gemesis in Florida and Apollo Diamond in Massachusetts -- are perfecting processes for growing real diamonds that are virtually indistinguishable from naturally produced stones. Although mechanically produced diamonds can be detected with infrared spectroscopy, the other process, chemical vapor deposition, "grows" diamonds that are suspected only because they're perfectly flawless, as rarely occurs in nature.

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