Blue Lab Grown Diamonds- boron?

[elle_chris]

ETA: I see the article was already linked so disregard my post. I mean why bother believing GIA study....

GIA discusses HPHT Colors including Blues in This Article

From

Observations on HPHT-Grown Synthetic Diamonds: A Review​

" Most early gem-quality HPHT synthetics were fancy color, since color-causing impurities, such as nitrogen (yellow) or boron (blue), were often prevalent within the growth system. Recent progress in growth technology has allowed for better control of impurity contents, resulting in the creation of colorless crystals"

And

"Most colors of HPHT synthetics are believed to be as-grown (i.e., due to impurities) rather than the product of post-growth treatment processing. In contrast, CVD synthetics are often subjected to post-growth treatment. Most near-colorless CVD synthetics are subsequently HPHT treated (to remove any brown coloration), while the pink samples (the other major CVD product) undergo irradiation and annealing (Eaton-Magaña and Shigley, 2016)."

Also

"Blue HPHT synthetics result from the presence of boron within the growth chamber. Colorless HPHT synthetics are reportedly sold as-grown without post-growth color modification (D’Haenens-Johansson et al., 2014), and they often contain small amounts of boron, which does not alter their color (but does impart luminescence)."

 

[oncrutchesrightnow]

Update....
I've been seeing more "Blue Nuance" stones....
Today, the grower told me they have to take steps to ensure that boron is excluded to avoid the blue.
That is to say, it exists in the atmosphere.
But other than the faint nuance...the next lightest blue Lab Grown Diamonds are quite intense in color...Fancy Light Blue ( for example) is not possible....

Interesting. Have vendors noticed an increase in demand for non-fluorescent earth diamonds? If some growers are having a hard time keeping boron out of LGD then maybe consumers who value an earth sourced diamond would not want people to mistake their earth diamond for LGD. So they would avoid blue fluoro.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

A strange question:
Diamonds with boron that are blue also conduct electricity.
That means there are free floating electrons.
Those electrons are absorbing energy in the yellow part of the spectrum, where as colorless diamonds absorb little or no energy.
Does that mean we should expect less brilliance in blue or blueish diamonds?

By comparison blue fluorescent diamonds have enhanced light when they collect invisible energy and add some blue emission. Does this explain why I am so attracted to non hazy strong blue fluorescent diamonds - because they are actually emitting more light in the visible range (with the added benefit of being a cool blue white). ??

 

[holyrock]

Man, im really interested in these now, have been carefully watching since the original post. Honestly really want some fancy blues to appear, but that seems impossible right now. Really wish a supplier just casually asked me if i wanted some haha. Gonna heep hunting for now, maybe they start appearing now some more.

 

[Rockdiamond]

Does this explain why I am so attracted to non hazy strong blue fluorescent diamonds

I strongly advise you to reconsider and resume our online therapy sessions to help you come to terms with the underlying causes for your overwhelming attraction Garry.....I'll even discount my diamond phsyco therapy rates.....bwhahahahahah

Seriously....I share your attraction and it goes waaaay back...for both of us, I'm sure.
At the dawn of my career, "Premier" stones were prized at Harry Winston.
I can spot these "blue white" stones in any lighting bright enough to distinguish color...as can you and most of the people reading this... they're special.

Honestly really want some fancy blues to appear, but that seems impossible right now.

As it relates to "Boron doping"...I just don't think we're there.
Boron exists. But the term "doping' implies having control over the process..and I don't think that's possible currently.
My reason is evidentiary, as opposed to scientific.
We just don't see stones of Fancy Light Blue. From what I understand it’s not possible to control boron to that degree

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Seriously....I share your attraction and it goes waaaay back...for both of us, I'm sure.
At the dawn of my career, "Premier" stones were prized at Harry Winston.
I can spot these "blue white" stones in any lighting bright enough to distinguish color...as can you and most of the people reading this... they're special.

The argument we were having with Michael Cowing a few years ago - if you have normal indoor light you cant distinguish a G from an F. But when you have enough light in a normal everyday place - the fluoro kicks inand the diamond grade improves from the GIA grade.
I have a 3.17ct F Srtong blue that everyone who sees it says it is whiter than a D non fluoro. And it is brighter!

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Honestly really want some fancy blues to appear, but that seems impossible right now.

You can always buy some from LightBox - and there are no reasons why they cant be made with radiation like treated natural.

 

[Rockdiamond]

You can always buy some from LightBox

Or other places….. there’s plenty of sellers offering irradiated blue lab diamonds

Also

"Blue HPHT synthetics result from the presence of boron within the growth chamber. Colorless HPHT synthetics are reportedly sold as-grown without post-growth color modification (D’Haenens-Johansson et al., 2014), and they often contain small amounts of boron, which does not alter their color (but does impart luminescence)."

Very pertinent to be sure!!
But- if we extrapolate frommGIAs statements:
1) “Blue HPHT synthetics” is not specific in terms of just how blue. We can all agree that boron in growth chambers results in Blue Nuance ( to copy IGI terminology)
What l am saying is that as opposed to being used on purpose, it seems Boron is not desirable -it creates stones with color ( even though it’s blue), if you’re trying to make a D color, this is an impediment.
2) they are not talking about the CVD grown blue diamonds/ which may ( I believe do) make up the bulk of “Fancy” blue LG diamonds on the market

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Or other places….. there’s plenty of sellers offering irradiated blue lab diamonds



Very pertinent to be sure!!
But- if we extrapolate frommGIAs statements:
1) “Blue HPHT synthetics” is not specific in terms of just how blue. We can all agree that boron in growth chambers results in Blue Nuance ( to copy IGI terminology)
What l am saying is that as opposed to being used on purpose, it seems Boron is not desirable -it creates stones with color ( even though it’s blue), if you’re trying to make a D color, this is an impediment.
2) they are not talking about the CVD grown blue diamonds/ which may ( I believe do) make up the bulk of “Fancy” blue LG diamonds on the market

Hi David,
I was told by Lightbox people their stones are grown as is and not post treated.

 

[Rockdiamond]

Of course I don’t doubt your word… but that contradicts their own info. This is from their site.

“How do you make colored lab-grown diamonds?
One of the great advantages of lab-grown diamonds is that they can be made in an array of colors that are very rare when found in nature. This is achieved by making changes in the gas mix added to the CVD reactor combined with treatments to these stones applied at the end of the synthesis process. The process sounds simple, but it has taken our scientists thousands of hours to refine the process and create the perfect Lightbox shades of light pink and blue every time”

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Of course I don’t doubt your word… but that contradicts their own info. This is from their site.

“How do you make colored lab-grown diamonds?
One of the great advantages of lab-grown diamonds is that they can be made in an array of colors that are very rare when found in nature. This is achieved by making changes in the gas mix added to the CVD reactor combined with treatments to these stones applied at the end of the synthesis process. The process sounds simple, but it has taken our scientists thousands of hours to refine the process and create the perfect Lightbox shades of light pink and blue every time”

OK, seems post treatment is the deal - thx for the correction David.
Perhaps they were talking about the colorless only

 

[holyrock]

Yea im more interested in the ones that arent treated, if i were offered some id most likely buy them for myself, were it a person i trust, as a collectors kind of thing. The treated stones dont interest me that much, but this kind of anomaly where a stone came out blue from HPHT chamber, and it wasnt the intention, thats what allures me. Diamonds intentionally treated to achieve a certain color overall dont interest me, and neither have i ever had someone ask for them.

 

[Rockdiamond]

The techniques are changing- rapidly.
I don't take (anything) at face value...because a lot of diamond dealers talk a lot of $hit.....
But I have been speaking to people about non-irradiated blue LG diamonds.....stay tuned

 

[kb1gra]

To add to the totally unscientific "diamond detective" work...
How come we are not seeing very many Fancy Yellow Lab Grown diamonds?
Just add nitrogen, right?
Yet that must not be working...because if I find yellows ( rare)- they are generally orangy- and never seem to be less saturated than Intense.....light yellow Lab Growns are pretty much nonexistant.

Skipping over the rest of the thread for a moment...

There was a very detailed article released in one of the chemistry journals last year with ~150 pages about nitrogen in diamonds and why the control of the nitrogen source is so important - as it turns out, with particular gas mixtures used to produce the pressure needed, adding more N2 speeds the crystal formation, but too much nitrogen, likely enough to produce the vivid yellow colors, the morphology of the surface changes and it leads to smaller and less well oriented facets on the polycrystalline surface, which is how you get graphitic deposits.

The orange color tends to come from the accidental introduction of solvents in the composite, likely from poor environmental control.

Because "getters" like Boron are introduced to try to trap the nitrogen and avoid the darker colors/graphitic deposits, you also are trapping any nitrogen that could induce a true yellow color.

A true vivid yellow lab diamond is likely the result of accelerating the growth process, with the nice consequence that you can still sell the end product

Here's the paper if anyone wants to dig into it. Lots of good physical chemistry to digest. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/134003/1/WRAP-Nitrogen-diamond-Newton-2020.pdf

 

[Rockdiamond]

Really amazing post- chock full of info.
What I've found thus far:
1) as a general rule, in any business, skepticism is a valuable tool. I employ it every day on behalf of our clients, and our reputation.
2) in the Natural Diamond business, the BS flows freely- but it's fairly easy for me to separate the "wheat from the chaff" as it were......
3) there are aspects of the LG diamond business that mirror the Natural Diamond business.....but in some ways, it's very different.
So figuring out when it's raining versus someone peeing on your leg is more difficult when it comes to LG diamonds- and this discussion of color is truly a great example of why.
A lot of people are making claims that are extremely tough to disprove- or prove.

A true vivid yellow lab diamond is likely the result of accelerating the growth process,

Yes- but the LG Vivid Yellow stones tend to be very "brassy" - which is undesirable in Natural Canary Diamonds...and taking it a step further-( based on actual diamonds I've seen versus scientific knowledge) they are not yet able to gain control of the process enough to reliably make lighter yellows

 

[kb1gra]

Really amazing post- chock full of info.
What I've found thus far:
1) as a general rule, in any business, skepticism is a valuable tool. I employ it every day on behalf of our clients, and our reputation.
2) in the Natural Diamond business, the BS flows freely- but it's fairly easy for me to separate the "wheat from the chaff" as it were......
3) there are aspects of the LG diamond business that mirror the Natural Diamond business.....but in some ways, it's very different.
So figuring out when it's raining versus someone peeing on your leg is more difficult when it comes to LG diamonds- and this discussion of color is truly a great example of why.
A lot of people are making claims that are extremely tough to disprove- or prove.



Yes- but the LG Vivid Yellow stones tend to be very "brassy" - which is undesirable in Natural Canary Diamonds...and taking it a step further-( based on actual diamonds I've seen versus scientific knowledge) they are not yet able to gain control of the process enough to reliably make lighter yellows

Just off the cuff, I’m inclined to believe that at least some of the yellow material being cut is “mistakes” in the process. The undesireability of the color would follow with that, as logic would hold there would be an incentive to make more “correct” stones to match the highly valued natural ones in hue. That they haven’t seems to imply that a) they can’t or b) they won’t, because the material they’re getting is an artifact of another process.

we know there are continued efforts to push the process and cut the growth time for substantial crystals - and we also know that the color improvements from boron doping have now come around to where the “mistakes” are priced lower than the “we meant to do that” stones. I suspect getting rid of the orange (and goodness, was there a lot of it for awhile) and not trying to get rid of the brown is where we are.

 

[MelloYello8]

Update....
I've been seeing more "Blue Nuance" stones....
Today, the grower told me they have to take steps to ensure that boron is excluded to avoid the blue.
That is to say, it exists in the atmosphere.
But other than the faint nuance...the next lightest blue Lab Grown Diamonds are quite intense in color...Fancy Light Blue ( for example) is not possible....

I don’t know that this is true. My first blue created diamond was from 2007 and called a “sky blue” diamond from Chatham— at the time they only sold blue, yellow and pink, with blues and yellows as-grown and pink having post growth treatment. More than a decade later I got my pinky ring stone from D.Nea that came with an IGI cert.

 

[Rockdiamond]

I don’t know that this is true. My first blue created diamond was from 2007 and called a “sky blue” diamond from Chatham— at the time they only sold blue, yellow and pink, with blues and yellows as-grown and pink having post growth treatment. More than a decade later I got my pinky ring stone from D.Nea that came with an IGI cert.

Can we see the rest of the report, please?
A few possibilities:
1) IGI has developed far more sophisticated analysis of Lab Grown Diamonds.
2) I can't speak to the claims of Chatham.....who knows?
3) graded very light blue, this might be the same sorts of faint blue stones we've been seeing.
anything is possible.....

 

[MelloYello8]

Can we see the rest of the report, please?
A few possibilities:
1) IGI has developed far more sophisticated analysis of Lab Grown Diamonds.
2) I can't speak to the claims of Chatham.....who knows?
3) graded very light blue, this might be the same sorts of faint blue stones we've been seeing.
anything is possible.....

I had taken a quick photo of the report and already put it away… I just received my belongings in an overseas move so I’m trying to get my things in order.

IGI seemed to be the first lab to certify man-made diamonds and I believe they differentiate between blue diamonds and white diamonds that may have blue nuance. There have been separate discussions on the forum about white stones with blue nuance, and whether the blue nuance is always disclosed on the certifications.

My stones are visibly blue even when set. Here is an old chart from Chatham describing the shades of blue. This seems to be about in line with what I remember being advertised back in ‘07.



I also found a couple old videos from a vendor showing Chatham blues which, as a consumer, would probably consider to be in the fancy light range…

 

[Rockdiamond]

No one is debating the existence of Lab Grown Blue diamonds....
I'm not an expert on Chatham.....but it seems like they don't even sell Blue diamonds anymore....speculating on what they did 14 years back doesn't seem likely to get us any concrete info.....
We could say the same thing about IGI- although it would probably be easier to check with them and get an answer.
We recently purchased a stone graded (IGI) as I color, with a comment that the stone is Faint Blue, with no porst growth treatment.
We've also recently seen the term "Blue Nuance" on IGI reports, again for stones they report as "as grown"

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

I bought a few specimens from Tom at the Tucson trade fair 3 or 4 years ago. Tom (who is totally trustworthy) said his Father had them grown in Russia a long while back. 1990's as I recall.
I bought most of what was left - 6 stones. He was not planning on doing them again and as I recollect I paid $750 per carat for mellee sizes.
They are the closest color to Argyle pink I have ever seen!
Two of them have SI1 catalyst inclusions

 

[Rockdiamond]

I never meant to call anyone's integrity into question...but we have zero definitive statements from Chatham regarding the diamonds in question or how they were made...
IN terms of pink, is anyone claiming non post growth treatment pinks????

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

I never meant to call anyone's integrity into question...but we have zero definitive statements from Chatham regarding the diamonds in question or how they were made...
IN terms of pink, is anyone claiming non post growth treatment pinks????

Tom's Dad was the guy incharge - I think he has passed away.
He was a ground breaking scientist making all sorts of sophisticated synthetic gems and sharing info with GIA so they could be detected by fakers.

 

[holyrock]

A true vivid yellow lab diamond is likely the result of accelerating the growth process,

They often look quite bad tho, and they are almost always pushed onto jewelers by companies that have them in my experience.

 

[Rockdiamond]

Tom's Dad was the guy incharge - I think he has passed away.
He was a ground breaking scientist making all sorts of sophisticated synthetic gems and sharing info with GIA so they could be detected by fakers.

I've met them both as well. Very nice guys both of them!! THe emeralds were lovely

The point is, in a discussion of how/why lab grown diamonds are blue, there's nothing published on the current Chatham site that even mentions this.
If there's is any place that does discuss this from Chatham's perspective, I'd love to read it.
I did find all the links/videos that @MelloYello8 found....but nothing about how the diamonds became blue.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

I've met them both as well. Very nice guys both of them!! THe emeralds were lovely

The point is, in a discussion of how/why lab grown diamonds are blue, there's nothing published on the current Chatham site that even mentions this.
If there's is any place that does discuss this from Chatham's perspective, I'd love to read it.
I did find all the links/videos that @MelloYello8 found....but nothing about how the diamonds became blue.

They do not seem to be selling colored diamonds David?

 

[Rockdiamond]

They do not seem to be selling colored diamonds David?

not according to my extensive research......


Seriously- I can't find anything other than colorless lab grown diamonds on their site

 

[MelloYello8]

I found an old EGL pamphlet online (as early as 2004) that seems to pre-date the commercial availability of white lab diamonds and discusses the growth and characteristics of other color diamonds that were available from different companies including Chatham at the time. http://www.jackhand.com/pdf/EGLbookletLOW.pdf

I think I read somewhere on this forum that since then, the cost to produce the diamonds using these older technologies plus low consumer interest made them no longer worth making. I don’t think current blue diamonds on the market are as-grown. The earlier ones look more blue and I seem to see an electric or teal tint on all the blues I see from lightbox and posted on DBL.

 

[DejaWiz]

I found an old EGL pamphlet online (as early as 2004) that seems to pre-date the commercial availability of white lab diamonds and discusses the growth and characteristics of other color diamonds that were available from different companies including Chatham at the time. http://www.jackhand.com/pdf/EGLbookletLOW.pdf

I think I read somewhere on this forum that since then, the cost to produce the diamonds using these older technologies plus low consumer interest made them no longer worth making. I don’t think current blue diamonds on the market are as-grown. The earlier ones look more blue and I seem to see an electric or teal tint on all the blues I see from lightbox and posted on DBL.

This is a great find!

 

[Rockdiamond]

Thanks for the reference @MelloYello8 !
But ( you knew there was a but coming, right?)
I see nothing specific about blue diamonds that can illuminate the discussion.
In this first reference, they speak of "adding born to the catalyst"

Yet, there's no specificity. And current events seem to show that boron is not "controllable"
Then this next section specifies how post growth treatments are used- including blue and green.


It's quite possible I missed something...anyone else find relevant info?