The technology applied to the diamond industry has produced the largest artificially created gem. This was announced by the Gemological Institute of America, which has cataloged a laboratory-grown diamond of record weight. The gem was produced in a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process by Ethereal Green Diamond, a company based in Mumbai, India. The man-made diamond presented at the GIA laboratory in Hong Kong weighs 34.59 carats and has an emerald cut. It is the largest lab-grown diamond GIA has ever examined, according to Wuyi Wang, GIA’s vice president of research and development. Alongside the interest in the unusual dimensions of the stone, however, the quality must also be considered.
The diamond has been graded G color (the best class is D) and VS2 clarity. In the gem there are small inclusions of black graphite inside and others that testify to the growth layers of the diamond. This type of diamond, in fact, is created with an accumulation of special steam inside special machines. Fluorescence examination revealed growth streaks typically seen in diamonds created with the CVD technique. Not only that: there is also a faintly oily or wavy grain in the facet of the surface, a characteristic that occurs in diamonds of this type. So far, the record for lab grown diamonds was held by the 16.41 carat princess cut diamond created by Shanghai Zhengshi Technology and examined in GIA’s Carlsbad laboratory in 2022.
