Moissanite

• Moissanite was first discovered while looking at rock samples from a meteor crater in 1893. The man who discovered it was a French chemist named Henri Moissan. Moissanite was promptly named after Moissan himself. At first he thought the stones were diamonds, due to their similarity. After some testing he found that the crystals were silicon carbide. This beautiful discovery from a meteorite is why people say moissanite was born from the stars. However, it turns out moissanite isn't just out among the cosmos, it is also found inside certain rocks on earth. Discoveries showed that it very, very rarely occurs naturally, more rarely than diamonds. Because of this, when many see moissanite, they see the essence and beauty of a dying star far away, captured in a stone. The love for moissanite jewelry started to arrive in 1998 in which it was regarded as the best diamond alternative. People loved the fact that it was affordable, ethically mined, and just as beautiful as traditional diamonds. Some say it's even more brilliant than traditional diamonds. Moissanite scores higher on the refractive index, meaning more of the "sparkle effect". Moissanite is also a 9.5 on the mohs scale of mineral hardness with a diamond being a 10.

• Both diamonds and moissanite are very high on the refractive index, which gives the stones their sparkle. However, moissanite is higher on the refractive index, making it more "brilliant" when exposed to light. Secondly, light goes through moissanite in a different fashion than diamonds and creates more of that fiery, slight rainbow flash.

• Both diamonds and moissanite are very high on the refractive index, which gives the stones their sparkle. However, moissanite is higher on the refractive index, making it more "brilliant" when exposed to light. Secondly, light goes through moissanite in a different fashion than diamonds and creates more of that fiery, slight rainbow flash.

For diamonds, carat weight refers to how heavy the stone is. However, moissanite is less dense than diamonds which makes the two stones difficult to compare by weight. Due to the density difference, a moissanite’s “carat weight” is denoted by the stone’s size in millimeters. For example, a one-carat diamond is comparable to a 6.5mm moissanite.

Certification And Grading Of Created Diamonds

The process for grading lab grown diamonds is the same as traditional diamonds and focuses on the cut, clarity, carat, and color of each gemstone. The cut is responsible for the brilliance of the diamond, and arguably the most important factor. Clarity refers to the appearance and lack of cracks and defects. When referencing clear diamonds, the lack of color makes a higher grade. Finally, carat is the measure of the diamond's size and weight. Each diamond is examined carefully and assigned a quality rating.

A piece of diamond jewelry can be a wonderful gift for yourself or someone you love. Diamonds are highly versatile and can be worn as everyday jewelry, or for special occasions. When you choose a lab grown diamond, you can invest in a high-quality and stunning piece that is also ethical and environmentally friendly.

Natural White & Colored Diamonds

White diamonds are essentially colorless and are devoid, or have very few minerals, that will alter its color, such as nitrogen. When diamonds are evaluated, one of the characteristics that gemologists look at is a diamond’s color. White diamonds are graded on a scale from D to Z, where D is colorless and Z is a light yellow. Ideally, a white diamond should have a color grade as close to D as possible.

Diamonds can come in an array of colors because of mineral contamination during the formation process or changes in its molecular structure. Below are several fancy colored diamonds along with what gives them their distinctive color. Unlike white diamonds, fancy colored diamonds do not have a letter color grade, instead they are graded from a scale of Fancy Light to Fancy Vivid depending on their color intensity. It takes a highly trained gemologist to identify a diamond’s proper color. The bottom line is that for fancy colored diamonds: the stronger, more vivid the diamond color, the more the diamond is worth.

Diamond has a wide band gap of 5.5 eV corresponding to the deep ultraviolet wavelength of 225 nanometers. This means that pure diamond should transmit visible light and appear as a clear colorless crystal. Nitrogen is by far the most common impurity found in gem diamonds and is responsible for the yellow and brown color in diamonds. Boron is responsible for the blue color [53] Color in diamond has two additional sources: irradiation (usually by alpha particles), that causes the color in green diamonds, and plastic deformation of the diamond crystal lattice. Plastic deformation is the cause of color in some brown[54] and perhaps pink and red diamonds.[55] In order of increasing rarity, yellow diamond is followed by brown, colorless, then by blue, green, black, pink, orange, purple, and red.[31] "Black", or carbonado, diamonds are not truly black, but rather contain numerous dark inclusions that give the gems their dark appearance. Colored diamonds contain impurities or structural defects that cause the coloration, while pure or nearly pure diamonds are transparent and colorless. Most diamond impurities replace a carbon atom in the crystal lattice, known as a carbon flaw. The most common impurity, nitrogen, causes a slight to intense yellow coloration depending upon the type and concentration of nitrogen present [31] The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) classifies low saturation yellow and brown diamonds as diamonds in the normal color range, and applies a grading scale from "D" (colorless) to "Z" (light yellow). Yellow diamonds of high color saturation or a different color, such as pink or blue, are called fancy colored diamonds and fall under a different grading scale.[31]