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inetknght 5 days ago

> Something had to start increasing the demand to enable that.

Diamonds are used in all kinds of things besides jewelry. Industry needs that economy of scale.

acjacobson 5 days ago | parent [-]

True but industrial grade natural diamonds are very inexpensive in comparison to jewelry quality ones.

grues-dinner 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

It depends what you use it for. Abrasives can use pretty much any horrible misshapen brown rock of roughly the right size.

But there are also applications for larger flawless crystals in things like diamond windows, semiconductor substrate and microtomes. Recently you can even buy a diamond 3D printer nozzle for extruding abrasive materials like carbon fibre. These require better processes than the ones that churn out abrasive diamonds.

ReptileMan 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

A rising tide lifts all boats. The demand for industrial diamonds is insatiable. And for bigger grits. This leads to people learning how to make bigger and stronger diamonds. Eventually some of the knowledge and tech will percolate to the jewelry side.

cwmoore 4 days ago | parent [-]

So simply, produced over time by a different kind of intense heat and pressure.