Synthetic Diamonds and Simulants

Synthetics

The jewelry industry uses special terms for manufactured and look-alike gemstones: synthetic and simulant. The differences between them are subtle, but very important.

Synthetic refers to a manmade material with the same chemical composition, crystal structure, and optical and physical properties as the natural gem material. Synthetic diamonds contain carbon atoms and they are arranged the same way as in naturally occuring diamonds.

Synthetic industrial diamonds, which are used as abrasives and in cutting tools, have been manufactured since the mid-1950s. Gem-quality synthetic diamonds have been commercially produced in limited quantities since the mind-1990s.

Simulants

Materials that simply look like natural gems are called simulants or imitations, "substitute" is an older term for the same thing. The materials can be either natural or manmade.

A number of materials have been used as diamond simulants. Some of the more common ones are glass, zircon, and colorless synthetic spinel. YAG (Yttrium Aluminum Garnet) and GGG (Gadolinium Gallium Garnet) are sometimes used and were both developed in the late 1960s.

Today, those simulants have been almost entirely replaced by CZ-synthetic cubic zirconia. It has "synthetic" in its name because cubic zirconia actually exists in nature, but in crystals too small for use in jewelry.

Synthetic moissanite, introduced in the late 1990s, is another modern diamond simulant.

Manmade Diamonds are rapidly becoming more popular as their manufacturing processes are being refined.

Summary:

Synthetic gem -	A manmade gem with essentially the same chemical composition, crystal structure, and properties as a natural gem.
Simulant -	A natural or manmade material that resembles a gem.