It seems that the De Beers brand has decided to follow the well-known diplomatic principle “if you can’t suppress a riot, lead it” and become a monopolist not only in the market of natural diamonds, but also of artificially grown stones. The Lightbox brand was created especially for these purposes, which will sell jewelry only with stones grown in laboratory conditions. Simple, unpretentious design, cheap - for every day.
“Synthetic diamonds are nothing more than a fad and a fad,” says Bruce Cleaver, CEO of De Beers. “They are not suitable for marking significant events in your life that you would like to remember for a long time.” The company’s financial director Nimesh Patel echoes him: “Such stones are not something unique. If you lose jewelry with a synthetic diamond, you are unlikely to be very upset. By the way, this is a great alternative for decorating a child.”
In general, when launching a new brand, De Beers speakers did everything in their power to ensure that the reputation of laboratory diamonds fell below zero. And this despite the fact that back in September 2017 the company officially announced that it would never sell artificially grown diamonds, which was understandable and understandable: in otherwise it would look like cannibalizing your own business.
Are there any differences?
The topic of artificially grown diamonds has been actively fueled over the past two years. The only question that worries the public all this time is: “How do they differ from natural ones?”
The correct answer is practically nothing. Pure carbon. Compressed by millions of years of geological processes or compressed by vapor deposition in the laboratory. Moreover, the direct formation of diamond in both natural and artificial environments requires approximately the same time - two to three weeks. It’s just that the natural one then lay “a little” in the earth’s crust. The chemical composition is the same. Crystal structure too. In terms of visual identity, colorless synthetic diamonds cannot be distinguished from natural ones even by an expert under 15x magnification. With special training, one may become suspicious - but no more.
“In fact, this is not entirely true,” says an independent jewelry expert who worked for De Beers for 35 years. “When cutting, a master can easily distinguish a natural diamond from one grown in a laboratory; to a trained eye, the structure is noticeably different.”
Actually, it was precisely in order to study human-grown diamonds in detail that a couple of years ago the De Beers company organized its own Element Six laboratory for growing and studying synthetic diamonds in British Berkshire.
Dimitri Otis / gettyimages.com
Today, most laboratory-grown diamonds try to pass themselves off as natural, which is what required such thorough and expensive research from De Beers.
The bad news is that if the artificial stone was not detected by experts at the jewelry production level, then you will not be able to determine it in the store. The good thing is that it is unlikely that anyone else will do it, so you will never know that you were deceived. But the opportunity itself makes not so much buyers nervous, but experts and jewelers - after all, reputation.
How much does it cost?
And now here’s the main point of De Beers’ trick with the Lightbox brand. Before the brand was introduced to the market, jewelry with artificial diamonds was sold by several American companies (which also produced them), and at a price only 30% lower than the cost of natural stones.
The main marketing difference and lure for buyers was the environmental friendliness and ethics of laboratory stones. In all other respects, the new players used the same idea of promotion (“value to important points life"), similar design, same cuts. Simply put, “synthetics” tried to play on the field of natural diamonds. That is, it laid claim to a piece of the fat market that De Beers had been feeding for years of expensive advertising campaigns, instilling in buyers a desire to invest in diamonds, paying for stones significantly more than their real value.
“Synthetic” or “human grown”?
Synthetic diamonds appeared on the market in an extremely unsuccessful reputational format: trying to imitate natural diamonds within a large batch of natural small diamonds weighing up to one and a half carats. And this, like any petty fraud, could not generate trust in the idea as a whole.
However, artificial diamonds They quickly rose to the level of small jewelry brands that care about the environment and ethics. The most famous of them are Diamond Foundry (investors Leonardo DiCaprio and Miroslava Duma), Orro, Gordan Max, Innocent Stone, Carat and a dozen others. Most production facilities are located in America and Asia, although there is one fairly well-known laboratory among professionals in Sestroretsk - it was here that the largest artificial blue diamond weighing 5 carats was grown two years ago.
Through joint efforts, the idea of the unique uniqueness and value of synthetic diamonds was conveyed to journalists, who seized on the idea of innovation and ethics, and then to consumers.
Diamond mining companies have united in an attempt to convince the public that synthetic stones have “no soul, no divine touch.” Advertising campaigns “Real is rare, real is diamond” were released on the market. At the same time, the advertisement shows a 20-carat stone of unique purity and transparency, and the advertising campaign itself, as we understand, is designed for buyers of quite ordinary diamonds of up to two carats, which can hardly be classified as rare. But here’s the paradox: the more jewelers and mining companies talked about the difference in properties, “rarity” and “uniqueness” natural stones, the more they contributed to the popularization of synthetic ones. By the end of the year, the press changed its tone from condescending to respectful: the epithet “synthetic” with a clear negative connotation was replaced by a more attractive one - “grown by man.” The diamantaires were seriously worried.
By launching Lightbox, De Beers has two simple goals. The first is to create a reputation for synthetic diamonds at the level of rhinestones - fashionable, cheap, frivolous. And the second, much more important thing is to lower their cost. If for the last two years prices for synthetics have been kept 30% lower than the market value of natural stones (that is, actually at the level of exchange prices), then Lightbox will sell jewelry at a price 85-90% lower than the cost of natural diamonds - $ 200 per stone a quarter carat and $800 per carat. By comparison, according to Rappaport's August 2018 newsletter, a 0.5-carat average-quality natural diamond costs about $1,500, while a 1-carat costs between $4,000 and $6,000, depending on characteristics. For now, De Beers' plan resembles a short, victorious blitzkrieg, but time will tell.
An artificial diamond is not a fake of a natural, processed diamond. This is an industrial product with the structure and properties of natural stone.
Properties of synthesized diamonds
A ready-made diamond cannot be grown, because that is the name of the product of processing a diamond, natural or obtained through a synthesis process. The mineral and the laboratory double have a nondescript appearance, and only after cutting do they become diamonds.
An artificially grown diamond is difficult to distinguish from a natural one. There are stones of such quality that they are difficult to identify even in a gemological laboratory. And their price is comparable to natural material.
Why can't artificially grown crystals be called fake diamonds? But because they are manufactured using specially created technologies so as not only to look similar, but to repeat the characteristics of a natural mineral. Synthetic diamonds acquire the following similar qualities to diamond:
- hardness;
- shine;
- refractive index, like water;
- same specific gravity;
- high thermal conductivity.
So how can you distinguish cut diamonds of natural origin from artificially grown diamonds? To differentiate, pay attention to the following properties of stones obtained during the technological process:
- Responsive to strong magnetic field.
- Under a microscope, even with twenty-fold magnification, it is difficult to find a flaw in a stone.
- The granular structure of a crystal, which is visible when the sample is magnified 80 times.
- The yellowish tint left by nitrogen.
- No mineral inclusions.
- Spectral analysis will show the presence of metal catalysts (if any were used).
But only infrared or laser spectrometry gives an accurate result. In the jewelry market, natural cut diamonds have been half replaced by cultured ones. Typically these are stones up to 1 carat in size. It is not profitable to synthesize larger ones: such production is labor-intensive and expensive, although artificial diamonds have been grown in Russia using new technologies dark blue with a weight of 10.07 carats.
Diamond production technologies
To grow diamond from microscopic fractions, 2 methods are used:
- Thermobaric method. Diamond powder is placed in a pressure chamber, which is exposed to high pressure and hot air. In this case, metal films are used as catalysts. Cycle time is 7-10 days.
- CDV method. The diamond seed is placed in a vacuum chamber containing methane. An electric arc destroys gas molecules, carbon atoms settle on the source material and crystallize. The stones grow in 4-5 days.
Synthetic and natural diamonds have the same component - carbon. Only the natural mineral takes a long time to form (how it is formed is unknown), and is grown in the laboratory in a few days, which allows satisfying the demand not only of the jewelry market, but also of the industrial one.
The production process does not end there. The resulting samples have a rough black surface. But this is removed by polishing, and after cutting the stone sparkles.
Diamond was first synthesized in the second half of the last century. The equipment for it was so expensive that production was cheaper. Further development of the industry made it possible to make the cost of synthetic crystals tens of times less.
Artificial and fake
Artificial diamonds are highly valued; scammers rarely offer them instead of real ones. There are stones that are commonly called diamond substitutes for their bright shine:
- Cubic zirconias are inferior in strength to moissanites, become cloudy over the years, and are of synthetic origin.
- Zircons are synthesized stones and are not precious.
Colorless sapphire, rutile, fabulite, yttrium, gallium, Swarovski crystals, acrylic polymers have a brilliant shine. They are called fakes or counterfeits because they have different structure and properties. The most similar crystal to a diamond is the natural mineral moissanite. It has high strength, shine and shine remain for many years.
Grown stones have 3 basic colors: yellow, blue and colorless. These colors do not change their saturation over time. Easier to grow yellow stones, so they are larger (up to 2 carats). There are orange crystals. This color is given by nitrogen impurities when they enter the crystal lattice. It is more difficult to grow blue diamonds (boron impurities give the color). Their size does not exceed 1.25 carats.
It is difficult to grow colorless diamonds because impurities that give color cannot be allowed to enter. Such crystals are less accessible and weigh no more than 1 carat. To make diamonds of other colors (pink, red, green), special processing is carried out after cultivation. The color of the crystal is indicated by a number. The colorless one has the number 1. But these are rare stones and they are called pure diamonds.
The production of artificial diamonds is in demand. In addition to manufacturing jewelry, they are used in medicine, construction, electronics, and nanotechnology. Cultured diamonds are high-purity stones that have an impeccable appearance and are very similar to natural ones.
Diamond jewelry is, of course, the dream of every ambitious lady. However, it was not the shortage of such jewelry that was the reason why many scientists around the world worked for decades in search of a way to produce an artificial diamond. It is vital in many industries (optics, medicine, microelectronics), and the goal of the technology being created was to ensure that artificial diamonds not only do not lose the properties of a natural gemstone, but also surpass it in the perfection of the crystal lattice.
Today there are at least four known ways to create an artificial diamond. It is difficult to say which of them is the most progressive, because one is too expensive, the disadvantage of the other is the dirty color of the crystals, the third has a significant difference from the natural one in the shape of the crystals. Therefore, the production technology is chosen depending on the purpose for which the stone will be used. The crystal lattice of natural diamond is a tetrahedron; it has no equal in strength, and in its ability to refract light it is significantly superior to glass: diamond - 2.42, glass - 1.8.
If we consider the most reliable way obtaining synthetic diamonds, then this will be the path closest to natural conditions. However, it is also the most expensive. The high cost lies primarily in the installation itself - a high-pressure press. A cylinder is placed in it, and inside it is a special chamber made of tantalum carbide with crystalline carbon (graphite). This is how a diamond is found in the depths of the earth. The cylinder is equipped with special holes through which water is supplied under high pressure and refrigerants penetrate.
In the process of multi-stage technology, graphite will become diamond. First, a powerful stream of water is supplied under high pressure, which compresses the graphite. After this, it is frozen to -12 degrees Celsius. The compression process not only does not stop throughout the entire technological process, but, on the contrary, increases due to freezing from 2-3 thousand atmospheres at the beginning to 20 thousand at the end. Next, an electric current enters for a split second, and finally the ice seal is defrosted and an artificial diamond is born.
The resulting diamond exactly replicates the natural crystal lattice of the tetrahedron, but has a somewhat dirty tint. However, the strength of the analogue is much superior to the natural one. In this way, stone is obtained for technical purposes. Another technology is also quite simple, when diamonds are grown in methane without air access. You can't do this without special equipment. Synthetic diamond ultimately has a cubic crystal shape, absolutely identical in strength, but black in color.
To obtain it, natural diamond is immersed in a special container of the device in minute quantities, like a seed. It is heated and carbon is gradually supplied (0.2% every hour). Explosion technology produces the purest diamonds in terms of color, strength, and crystal lattice shape. To produce them, they use the same graphite, which is preheated and at the moment of explosion turns into diamond chips. Precisely into crumbs, because with this method the yield of crystals is very large, but they turn out small.
The same small artificial diamonds are obtained by low temperatures. This technology uses a special metal catalyst, which can significantly reduce pressure and temperature. As a rule, graphite, solvent, iron, cobalt, and nickel are placed in the chamber. The diamond “grows” layer by layer in the interlayer between the hot graphite and the catalyst plate. This is how diamonds are obtained for technical purposes. During each individual cycle it grows up to 50 grams.
Depending on the catalyst used, diamonds vary in color. Thus, an admixture of nickel gives a green tint; with the help of beryllium, blue diamonds are obtained. You can get other colors: white transparent and matte, yellow. Low temperature process gives synthetic diamonds square shape. The strength is higher than that of natural diamond. If you place corundum chips in a chamber along with chromium, and use pure corundum as a catalyst, you will be able to get a perfect ruby.
If you add iron and titanium to this composition, you can get sapphire. The temperature will need 600 degrees Celsius, and the pressure is only 1.5 thousand atmospheres. Modern technologies thus allow you to create gems, which according to external signs Even a professional jeweler cannot distinguish it from natural ones. Of course, if you pick up high-precision instruments, you will be able to detect impurities. But this cannot be done with the naked eye.
The creation of all the above-mentioned technologies was made possible by the knowledge that, in essence, natural diamond is just carbon. The same pure carbon is charcoal and graphite. Therefore, the latter is most often turned into precious diamond crystals by using one of the methods. It is known that carbon can be in solid, gaseous and liquid states. By studying the timing of these states and using pressure and temperature changes, it is now possible to produce artificial diamonds.
The question is what artificial stones do not have natural properties; we’ll leave it for another article. Let’s immediately look at how and why people create artificial diamonds.
Types of artificial diamonds
As you know, diamond is the most durable of precious stones; nature “spends” at least several thousand years to create it, and also “applies” high temperature and pressure. Only in the 14th century did they learn to cut them and the very concept of “diamond” appeared, i.e. cut diamond. The man’s inquisitive mind did not stop there. Attempts to create an artificial diamond began already in the 18th century.
There are currently several known species synthetic stone, similar in appearance and building for diamonds.
- Moissonite - grown in laboratory conditions since 1905, its composition is silicon carbide. The mineral is named in honor of its creator, the French scientist Henri Moissan. Further, technologies were significantly developed in the Soviet Union and the techniques and methods developed by Soviet scientists are still used. The value of moissonite in industry is very high. According to their own technical specifications it can even outperform natural stone.
- Swarovski crystals are crystal with a modified composition. Swarovski is worldwide famous brand. Daniel Swarovski began his work in the mid-19th century, when he invented his own formula, which allowed him to obtain crystals that were ideal in brilliance and beauty.
- Cubic zirconia - Soviet scientists obtained this mineral in 1968. Named in honor of its “parent” - the Physical Institute of the Academy of Sciences (FIAN). The goal was to create a mineral that could be used in laser systems. The chemical composition of cubic zirconia differs from diamond; it is zirconium dioxide. (Diamond is made of carbon). Abroad it is called jevolite or zirconite.
Synthetic diamonds: a threat or an alternative?
There are two main technologies for growing diamond single crystals: HPHT and CVD. The first - HPHT - is based on the use of high temperature and high pressure, the second - CVD - carbon deposition from the gas phase. Both methods are interconnected and complement each other.
The main purpose of artificially grown crystals is to use them in the field of high technology.
China is the main manufacturer and supplier of synthetic diamond powder (grains up to 800 microns in size). The lion's share of the powder—about 80%—is used within China itself. The cost of such powder is 20 cents per unit (previously it was 20 dollars!), It is used mainly for diamond discs in the production of tools.
Larger synthetic diamonds are not yet commercially produced, because... their production is more complex and Chinese scientists are still developing technologies for simultaneous cultivation large quantity such crystals (and, accordingly, cheap in price).
Synthetic diamonds do not pose a threat to natural diamonds. This statement is due to the following reasons:
- Artificial minerals can be more expensive than natural ones or cost slightly less. When there is a leap in the technology of their production, and the price of synthetic ones decreases tens of times, then, perhaps, there will be next question– whether in the jewelry world they will use synthetic ones as analogues and how popular this will be.
- The market for synthetic diamonds for jewelry purposes has not yet been formed. There are, of course, lovers of everything technological and prefer materials made by human hands rather than by nature, but there are quite a few of them. Basically, people are willing to pay only for natural gemstones just because they have uniqueness and natural beauty that simply cannot be synthesized by any modern devices.
- For technical purposes - in tools, medicine, high-tech technologies, diamond powder and crystals have long been used, but natural diamonds are no longer so profitable to use in this market.
- All artificially grown diamonds that are used for jewelry purposes are, as a rule, promoted under their own brand and no attempt is made to mislead the consumer. Crystals from Swarovski can be as expensive as a cut natural diamond, because its cutting takes up a significant part of the cost.
Artificial yellow diamonds
There are also high-quality gem-quality diamonds grown. They have a rich yellow, but are 4 times cheaper than natural ones, because they “grow” in 4 days, and not thousands and millions of years. For example, the American company Gemesis specializes in growing diamonds for jewelry purposes. This video is dedicated to this highly technological process.
How to distinguish cubic zirconia from a diamond
The stones most similar to diamonds are cubic zirconias. Diamond and cubic zirconia are used for jewelry purposes and therefore, in practice, the question may arise as to what differences they have. Fraudsters who pass off cubic zirconia as precious stones use the external similarity of minerals that are completely different in chemical and physical composition.
Depending on the heat treatment, it is possible to grow transparent or black cubic zirconia. Colored cubic zirconias are more reminiscent of peridots, white and pink chalcedony, red ruby, alexandrites (with inversion depending on lighting).
The most important difference between cubic zirconia and diamond (with the exception of chemical composition, of course) is its strength and hardness. It is much softer and therefore can be easily distinguished from a real diamond even at home. So, if you run a stone across a mirror, cubic zirconia will only scratch the surface, while a natural diamond will cut the glass.
You can also distinguish between a natural and an artificial diamond by its brilliance. Even a natural stone that has been used for a long time in jewelry, but becomes dirty from wear, still continues to shine, and cubic zirconia almost loses its shine.
If they want to pass off cubic zirconia as a diamond for fraudulent purposes, then they try to cut it just as difficult, and then with the help of a magnifying glass or microscope you can examine and notice the “split” of the edges. This cannot happen when cutting a natural diamond.
In general, it can be noted that it is quite difficult for a non-specialist to distinguish cubic zirconia if the master sets out to pass it off as a diamond.
Fortunately, this is not accepted in the jewelry world, where cubic zirconia, Swarovski crystals, and other types of artificially created minerals are sold under their own names and are in fairly high demand.
Wrote in January 30th, 2018
The phrase “Belarusian diamonds” sounds the same to our ears as “Belarusian shrimp.” But don't rush into jokes. Few people know that in the nineties, one of the world’s first diamond synthesis plants was built in Belarus, that the world’s industrial giants are ready to chase Belarusian scientists in this field, and that the quality of crystals was appreciated at the international level.
The world's first synthesized diamond was produced by General Electric back in the 1950s using a special press. The small dirty pebble was no different in properties from natural diamonds. There was only one catch: it needed much more money to synthesize it than to extract it from nature. They gave up on this matter and happily forgot about growing diamonds until the 1980s.
One of the first attempts to produce diamonds using an electric arc furnace.
At the end of the 1980s, scientists from the Novosibirsk branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences created a pressless "cut sphere" (BARS) apparatus, with the help of which, for the first time in the world, they obtained a synthesized diamond, ready to compete with natural diamonds not only in quality, but also in cost. For the first synthesized Novosibirsk diamonds, it was significantly lower.
Retired general, seven scientists and $5 million
After successful testing in the 1990s, seven famous Soviet scientists (two of them were Belarusians) got the idea to create the world's first diamond synthesis plant. Due to its good geographical location, Belarus was chosen as the site.
Scientists became the founders of the Adamas company. They took out a loan for 51 million Soviet rubles from Promstroybank of the USSR and began construction in the village of Atolino, near Minsk.
BARS devices.
The plant was supposed to be quite large: a three-story building, 220 workers. But there wasn’t enough money, so later the founders included the then Belpromstroybank, which provided the company with a credit line of $5 million, as well as two well-known Soviet times businessmen who contributed another $2.5 million.
The investors only managed to complete the building, supply 120 BARS devices and work out the technology a little, when problems began for the founding businessmen - they left the plant without money.
Suddenly, four scientists are lured to the United States by retired General Carter Clark. It turns out that in 1995 he bought the technology for producing synthesized diamonds for $60 thousand and founded the Gemesis Diamond company. By the way, everything was formalized, since Russia at that time urgently needed money and was selling off its scientific developments. The scientists left the Adamas and went to Clark.
One of largest producers synthesized diamonds in the world.
Finding themselves in a difficult situation, the founders tried to return the loan money to the bank, but in vain. In 1999, a criminal case was opened against the management of Adamas. The trial lasted five years, the amount of damage was estimated at $7 million. Businessmen and a lawyer went abroad. However, four were still imprisoned.
After their release, none of the former Adamas leaders returned to Atolino. The remaining three scientists also left for St. Petersburg and Moscow, and with them the technology of diamond synthesis.
The first synthetic diamonds.
This is how three largest centers of synthesized diamonds appeared in the world: Moscow, St. Petersburg and the American state of Florida. There are several other small companies, but they say that all the threads lead to the same seven.
What has been happening to the plant itself all this time? It was transferred to the balance of the Belarusian State University. In one of the parts of the building, the enterprise of the Republican Unitary Enterprise “Adamas BGU” functioned: scientists conducted research, studied the production of industrial diamonds, and improved it. True, the operation of the installations was very expensive and the financial issue became more and more acute.
Belarusian diamonds
“When the Chinese, Arabs and Israelis began to persuade us to sell the production, it became clear: there is demand”
On the edge of Atolino stands the same three-story factory building that Soviet scientists dreamed of so much - an ordinary production facility with painted walls and fresh renovations inside. At the checkpoint here there is a policeman and a strict access control regime. 
Several years ago, the Adamas BGU enterprise moved into the structure of the Presidential Administration. A little bit more than a year ago, the vice-rector of the Academy of Management under the President, Maxim Bord, was asked to assess the situation in Atolino: does it make sense to set up production there or is it easier to scrap the devices?
“I’ll admit right away: I’m a lawyer by training and the topic of diamond production was new to me,” Maxim Naumovich leads us into the workshop. — I began to study literature, look Foreign experience. Honestly, I didn’t believe that our crystals were actually good and could be sold. But I traveled to exhibitions, showed diamonds, cut diamonds that were grown in our workshop - the experts were delighted with the quality. And when the Armenians, Chinese, and Israelis started calling with persuasion to sell the equipment, I finally understood: there are prospects. 
So, in November 2016, AdamasInvest LLC appeared (the previous enterprise is now at the stage of liquidation). It is also subordinate to the Presidential Administration and works on a special project “Restoring the production of synthesized diamonds and developing jewelry production with inserts from the resulting diamonds.” 45 people work here.
— We received a loan for this project. The money is refundable, there are clear deadlines,” emphasizes Maxim Naumovich. “We developed a detailed business plan, within six months we put the building in order, restored the workshop and launched jewelry production. In fact, this is what we are focusing on now. 
According to Maxim Naumovich, there is no point in entering the industrial diamond market: China has killed all the players. Nine years ago, the Kiev Tool Plant sold a sample of a special press to China. China produced 40 thousand of them, entered the industrial diamond market in 2014 and collapsed it 20 times. Therefore, even though Belarusian industrial diamonds are superior in quality to Chinese ones, they cost five times more.
— China is not yet entering the jewelry market. I think the two largest players are not letting him in: the US-controlled De Beers and the Russian Alrossa. Therefore, we have good chances in the synthesis of jewelry diamonds,” concludes Maxim Bord.
Temperature can rise to 2 thousand degrees, pressure - up to 20 thousand atmospheres
A huge hall with dozens of cylinders and a minimum of workers - this is what the workshop looks like with those very BARS, of which there are 120 here. A mechanic and an engineer can service all devices during a shift. In total, 10 people work in the workshop. 
“They were designed in the 1970s, but in the production of diamonds for jewelry purposes, nothing better than BARS can be found,” Maxim Naumovich shows the open hemisphere. — In general, there are currently two technologies for producing diamonds in the world: HTHP (high temperature, high pressure — heat, high pressure) and CVD (chemical vapor deposition - chemical vapor deposition). The latter is good for the production of industrial diamonds, but not very suitable for jewelry. The fact is that in a gaseous environment the stone grows in even layers, but in nature it grows unevenly, as with the HTHP technology that we use.
Maxim Naumovich shows the cylinder control panel. This is special equipment that is controlled manually. At the slightest deviation from the set values, workers adjust the indicators. 
— It would seem that a computer could monitor how diamonds grow. And, to be honest, I had thoughts of automating this process,” says the director. “But when I saw our technology, I realized: there is no point. Firstly, it is expensive, the investment will not pay off. Secondly, the growth of diamonds depends on a dozen nuances: for example, on temperature changes in the external environment at various stages. Will a computer be able to take into account all these nuances and react like a human? We think not yet. 
The BARS themselves are designed quite simply: 3.5 tons of metal, a hose for supplying oil that creates pressure, and contacts that provide current and temperature. Inside the device there are two spheres: a large one and a smaller one. Each sphere consists of six parts - punches made of a special alloy. Large ones weigh 16 kilograms, small ones - a little less than a kilogram. Small punches are actually a consumable item. They cost $200 and fail on average after five syntheses. 
“The temperature at the entrance to the device is 1500 degrees, the pressure is 1800 atmospheres,” explains the director. — Inside, the temperature can rise to 2 thousand degrees, and the pressure - up to 10-20 thousand. Temperature and pressure change throughout the growth of the diamond. This is three days, not centuries, as in nature.
In the very center of the sphere there is a special porcelain cube. In it, as Maxim Naumovich says, there is “all science.” Before the cube is sent to BARS, it is “stuffed”: a special compressed tablet is placed, consisting of individual components, usually metals, there is also a small piece of diamond, which then grows into a large stone and a graphite rod (graphite is a medium which gives the diamond the opportunity to grow). Then the cube is dried in an oven, impregnated with certain materials, and only after all these procedures can it be laid. 
Whether a diamond will grow or not depends even on the warmth of the hands of the workers.
“Production technology is very capricious,” adds Maxim Naumovich. “A diamond can grow big, maybe small, good or bad, or it may not grow at all.” Everything depends on a dozen factors: from the hands of the engineer who assembles the cube, from how he dries it, whether he saturates it correctly, right down to the temperature in the workshop and the quality of the graphite. Somehow they also tried to establish production in the Baltic countries. We purchased equipment, but diamonds did not grow. It turns out that growing a diamond is not just turning on a switch. 
After three days, the cube is removed from the BARS, broken, and a small blank is taken out, on which the edge of the crystal can be seen. The blank is thrown into the flask and poured " royal vodka"(three portions of hydrochloric acid and one of nitric acid). The flasks are placed in a special cabinet and heated to speed up the reaction.
“Under normal conditions, after two hours the metals dissolve and only diamond remains,” they say in the laboratory. “Then we extract the diamond, wash it and put it in the chrome mixture. 
This is how the graphite is removed and a pure diamond is obtained. It is weighed, packaged and outsourced to a Russian company for cutting (there are no available cutting specialists in Belarus, and it is still expensive to train new ones).
— A diamond can lose 30-60% of its original weight. It all depends on the presence of inclusions and the purity of the stone, they add at the production site. “In addition, half of all syntheses are guaranteed to produce high-quality stones for cutting and installation into a product - that’s 220 stones per month. In another 20% of cases, the resulting stones are of slightly lower quality. 
— It’s enough for work for now, but it’s not enough for development. “We are struggling with this problem,” Maxim Naumovich shows samples of diamonds. — We have certified our stones at the International Gemological Institute in Antwerp. Expert opinion is this: our stones are no different from natural ones in all their chemical and physical characteristics. Here the same indicators exist in terms of strength, lack of reaction to radiation, and so on. 
The company mainly grows colorless diamonds weighing up to 1 carat, producing diamonds weighing 0.2-0.3 carats. Such stones are mainly used for earrings and rings. Crystals can also be refined: given lemon, black, red and other colors. But the company says that Belarusians prefer the classics.
“Hindus began to ask to make ritual diamonds from the ashes of the dead”
Having learned about the low prices for Belarusian stones by world standards, Indians called the company with an unusual request: to make ritual stones.
“They want to preserve the memory of their cremated relatives in this way.” Compared to a British company that is closely involved in similar production, our diamonds were five times cheaper,” explains the director. 
“We didn’t dare to work with the ashes of the dead, but we worked out the technology for producing diamonds from hair. Yes, diamonds can be obtained from hair. We get carbon from them, and then we work according to the same scheme. We have tested the technology and have already produced 12 such stones. True, for now the mass introduction of this topic is the next stage of work for us. And this topic has great potential for science.
But the company still places its main emphasis on its own jewelry production. The jewelry workshop, although small (9 people), can potentially produce up to 5 thousand units per month. Last week, a large batch of Belarusian diamonds arrived in stores. 
— Our products cost 20-30% less than products with natural stones, and synthesized diamonds themselves cost half as much as natural ones. For example, the selling price for ready product with a diamond of 0.15 carats is 300 rubles, with a stone of 0.25 carats it will cost 600 rubles,” the director shows samples of products. 
These are mostly engagement rings. Maxim Naumovich says that the plans include earrings, cufflinks, silver with diamonds, and even an art series in eco-style. 
— In Europe, synthesized diamonds are gaining popularity. It is believed that they are more environmentally friendly than those extracted from the bowels of the earth. And it is true. Moreover, their properties are not inferior to natural ones,” he argues and shares his plans: to gain a foothold in the jewelry market, open a branded store with prices 40% lower than market prices, and much more. 
— There is a goal to make our diamonds an affordable Belarusian brand. And the global task is to further develop scientific technologies in this area using the profits received,” adds Maxim Bord.
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