Written by: Beck
It's not new news--
Wired published this article back in September--but it's new to me, and I wanted to comment on it. Basically, a pair of companies operating independently in the US have come up with new methods of creating artificial diamonds affordably. While small, low grade artificial diamonds have been manufactured for decades for use in various industrial applications, affordable artificial jewelry grade diamonds are a relatively new thing.
This could be HUGE on two completely different fronts. First, and most obviously, it could bring about the final destruction of the de Beers diamond cartel. The impact that would have in the luxury jewelry market could be quite far reaching. Perhaps even more significant, however, is the potential for semiconductors made not of silicon, but of diamond.
But the greatest potential for CVD diamond lies in computing. If diamond is ever to be a practical material for semiconducting, it will need to be affordably grown in large wafers. (The silicon wafers Intel uses, for example, are 1 foot in diameter.) CVD growth is limited only by the size of the seed placed in the Apollo machine. Starting with a square, waferlike fragment, the Linares process will grow the diamond into a prismatic shape, with the top slightly wider than the base. For the past seven years - since Robert Linares first discovered the sweet spot - Apollo has been growing increasingly larger seeds by chopping off the top layer of growth and using that as the starting point for the next batch. At the moment, the company is producing 10-millimeter wafers but predicts it will reach an inch square by year's end and 4 inches in five years. The price per carat: about $5.
It's a long article (6 pages) but very interesting. A good read if you've nothing more productive to do.