Artificial diamonds

Artificial diamonds are made by using very high temperature and pressure to graphite. They so contain many of the fundamental properties of pure gold. They are extremely hard, have broad transparency, a high thermal conductivity and high electrical resistivity. It is a very expensive process to make these diamonds and they are mainly used in industrial processes. They are usually produced as small crystals to provide coatings for cutting instruments such as machining tools, cutting discs, grinders or mining drills. 

The first man involved in making artificial diamonds was Percy Williams Bridgman. He won a Nobel Prize for his study of the results of subjecting metals to high temperatures. However, he didn’t actually create any diamonds and his work was never made public. In 1954, a scientist working with General Electric created the first synthetic diamonds. 

Artificial diamonds are also used as jewellery. Imitation stones have been used as far back in history as the ancient Egyptians and Romans, but they did not have diamonds. The fake diamonds have often been called paste diamonds or glass. White stone jewellery has also been called diamond. When you are buying jewellery with this type of stone in it you are told upfront that the diamond is not real.  

You can purchase cheap artificial diamonds at the jewellery counter of most department stores. They are actually either rock crystal or white topaz that has been put under special lighting to make them more attractive and diamondlike. When you look at paste diamonds, you will not be able to see a shimmer of light that comes from real diamonds. The corners of these fake diamonds are not as sharp as the real ones either. If you drop water on a real diamond, it will stay there in shape, whereas water dropped on a paste diamond will spread over the whole stone.