Richard Post, age 15, of Houston, Texas, for his question:
How do they make synthetic gems?
The earth creates gem stones from common minerals, taking plenty of time and often using immense heat and pressure. Their qualities and colors depend upon the different ingredients used to make them. Synthetic gems are made tom the same ingredients as natural gems. In some cases, nature's methods are copie to make them though in less time. Some of these man made stones are equal to nature's own and at least one is superior. Another beautiful synthetic gem created in the laboratory is truly man¬made. So far as we know it was never created by nature.
Precious gems are crystal minerals, hard and shiny bright. Diamonds are made of carbon atoms arranged in firm lattice crystals. Preciou~ rubies, emeralds and other corundums are crystals of aluminum oxide, colored with m~tallic impurities. The basic ingredients are easy to come by, but it is far from easy to arrange their atoms and molecules in lattice crystals. In 1904, a French chemis perfected a method for making synthetic rubies and other corundum gems. His Verneuil process still is used to make them. In 1955, American scientists found a method to mate synthetic diamonds.
The Verneuil process uses the super heat from an o hydrogen flame. For making synthetic rubies, the ingredients are powdered aluminum xide with a trace of chromium oxide. The basic ingredients are about 52 per cent alum num, and 47.1 per cent oxygen; the trace ingredient adds the ruby red color. When the igmented powder is melted in the hot flame, it splatters a rain of fragments. The ho particles are captured and coaxed to build a stalagmite shaped crystal. This is ca led a boule and good boule crystal can be cut and polished just like a natural gem. However, building these synthetic gems is costly and tedious and many attempts r sult in poor stones and out¬right failures.
Synthetic rubies, sapphires, emeralds and other corundums are made in the same manner from the same basic ingredient, though other metallic impurities are added to create their different colors. Other methods may be used to create synthetic corundum crystals in molten alumina under enormously high temperatures.
Synthetic diamonds may be created from carbonaceous ingredients in a special furnace. The material is subjected to pressure and tremendous heat. After all that
How do they make synthetic for Friday, July 23, 1971 trouble and expense, this produces only flawed and dark little diamonds suitable only for industrial use. Recently someone announced a method to create synthetic gem quality diamonds but apparently the secret process is too valuable to be revealed in detail.
Man made copies of nature's rusty colored ruble gems are built from powdered tinanium oxide. These synthetic rutiles are made by the same old Verneuil process. Some of them are brighter and more transparent than nature's own. And a certain synthetic gem called strontium tatanate has not been found in nature.
Creating synthetic gem stones is a costly operation requiring highly skilled craftsmen and lab conditions. The man made crystals are perfect copies of the natural gems. Sometimes they have fewer flaws and brighter colors. This may explain why a superior specimen of man made emerald may be almost as valuable as a natural one.