Sorting and Grading
Diamond Nexus simulants are sorted and graded in the same way as earth-mined diamonds. Each simulant is inspected, evaluated and graded against a perfect control example. Any simulants that exhibit any defects in cut, color or clarity are rejected. Our Certified Signature series of simulants is sent out to an independent diamond grading lab for third-party testing and grading. Simulants are stored in diamond paper until they are sold as individual pieces, or set in jewelry.
Diamond Nexus also produces rubies, emeralds, and sapphires that are the exact optical, physical, and chemical duplicate of earth-mined gemstones. They look like the real thing because they are the real thing. However, as they are made in a lab, they are superior to 95% of all natural gemstones produced in the world today because their crystal structure and color are absolutely ideal. The rubies are the color of the most expensive Burmese pigeon's-blood rubies, the emeralds are the deep color and clarity of the finest Colombian stones and the sapphires are the equal of beautiful deep-hued Malaccan sapphires. These are all pieces that would cost thousands of dollars per carat if they were mined gems.
The advantage of our synthetic stones, as with our diamond simulant product, is that they are created in laboratories by highly trained and well paid technicians with environmentally clean and ethically proper processes. They are also free of inclusions or flaws, something rarely found in nature.
This is very different from mined gemstones. For instance; most Burmese rubies are currently banned from the US market because of serious human rights violations in the Burmese gemstone mining industry. Of course, we all know the story of "conflict diamonds" or "blood diamonds."
Most precious colored gemstones such as rubies, emeralds and sapphires (called RES in the jewelry world) are mined in third world nations in Africa, South America, and Asia. These nations rarely have the laws and infrastructure to enforce environmental and human rights regulations, and so the gemstones are mined by environmentally damaging methods like strip mining and chemical extraction. This is often done by child or forced labor under horrific conditions.
An ion assist beam is then focused on the simulants, causing a reverse in polarity and the molecules in the plasma species are attracted to the molecules in the substrate. The two materials fuse together and the coating is deposited and interlocked to the surface.
Creation Process
Synthetic sapphire and ruby share most of the same chemical and optical characteristics. Consequently, the growth techniques and other facets of the creation process are very similar. Both materials are made of corundum, which is a crystalline form of aluminum oxide. The difference is in the introduction of chromium to create ruby.
Our synthetic ruby and sapphire material is produced by the controlled feeding of a powdered mixture of aluminum oxide, chromium oxide and other elements into a stream of oxygen, and then into a stream of hydrogen. It is then ignited at about 3,600f. This hot plasma is then streamed over a corundum "seed", which the crystal grows around. The crystal grows to about the size of 150 carats. At that time, it is rough cut into smaller pieces and carefully checked for quality. Then, like our simulated diamond, it receives a final cut and polish.
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