Are man made diamonds a viable alternative to real diamonds?
This is really two separate questions, though outfits like Nexus Labs do their best to confuse the issue. Synthetic diamonds — also known as lab-created, manufactured, “lab-grown,” or cultured — are chemically, physically, and optically identical to mined diamonds, which fits my definition of “real.” This is one online source for synthetic diamonds, though all of these are colored stones; creating white diamonds is more difficult, making them more expensive, but they are out there. The price of mined diamonds is kept artificially high by the diamond cartel, and gem-quality synthetics are a threat to their monopoly. Then there is the issue of conflict diamonds (aka “blood diamonds”), as well as other humanitarian concerns about the mined diamond ind
