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Our Lab-Grown Diamonds: The Planet Conscious Millennial's Best Friend

DIAMOND OF THE FUTURE
  • Through the magic of innovation, and years of creative brilliance, SFO transforms carbon into lab-grown diamonds, the unique SFO Created Diamonds, indistinguishable from their natural form. Produced at high-level environmental safety standards, our lab-grown diamonds embody luxury with a conscience, for next-generation style.

100 PERCENT DIAMONDS

  • SSO Created Diamonds are quite simply magic. Creating laboratory grown, 100 Percent diamonds, indistinguishable from mined diamonds in every attribute may appear to be the work of pure sorcery. However, behind the scenes it requires a vast array of specialists – from diamond-growing technicians, master diamond cutters, and certified gemologists. Each of these experts nurture, shape, and grade every lab-grown diamond until it is ready to be worn in the world.

BREATHTAKING BRILLIANCE

  • SFO Created Diamonds combine timeless craftsmanship and 21st century values married with epic creativity. Just as no two mined diamonds are exactly alike, each of our environmentally conscious, lab nurtured diamonds is a complete original, utterly unique and thoroughly enchanting.

ONLY THE EXCEPTIONAL

  • All SFO  Created Diamonds are hand-selected and graded in the exact same manner as mined diamonds. Gemologists grade our lab-grown diamonds according to the industry’s standard 4Cs, which relate to cut, color, clarity, and carat weight, for when you really need to shine.

CONSCIOUS LUXURY

  • Celebrate your engagement with a beautifully responsible choice. By offsetting the energy used to produce SFO Created Diamonds, we make the process of creating our lab-grown diamonds completely carbon neutral. And we are thrilled that all of our stones are created in adherence with high-level environmental, safety, and labor standards. With this magic your lover will certainly say, “Yes!”

CERTIFIED EXCELLENCE

  • If a SFO Created Diamond is indistinguishable from a mined diamond of equal quality, how can you tell if the diamond is made by SFO? All SFO Created Diamonds larger than 0.10 ct. are marked by a laser engraving. This mark is visible only under strong magnification and identifies our diamonds as authentic SFO Created Diamonds of extraordinary beauty.

ARTISTS AND MAGICIANS

  • Each SFO Created Diamonds is subject to strict quality controls, precision-cut by master cutters to enhance its unique brilliance and sparkle, before being judged and graded by gemologists via the industry’s standard 4Cs.

MERGING SCIENCE AND MAGIC

  • Welcome a new era of sparkling innovations with SFO Created Diamonds that are indistinguishable from mined diamonds. Engineered precision, attention to the tiniest detail and highest quality in every lab-grown diamond, with design and experience, built on 125 years of craftsmanship in mastery of light.

CUTTING EDGE CREATION

  • SFO Created Diamonds are made to ignite your dreams. Each diamond is grown from a tiny diamond seed, which is placed in special laboratory conditions emulating the same heat and pressure necessary to form mined diamonds.
  • Once this tiny seed has been nurtured into a raw diamond, experienced master cutters transform it into an object of exquisite beauty-a 100% real diamond.

TRUE COLORS

  • SFO Created Diamonds are perfectly made to express your individual style. Grown in 20 enchanting colors-the most comprehensive array in the market-our diamonds are crafted in smoldering, sparkling, eye‐catching hues that range from ethereal blush and soft champagne to deep cherry and charismatic blue.
  • With judging criteria-hue, saturation, and tone-identical for mined and lab‐grown diamonds alike, you are assured of brilliant creativity and optimum color radiance.

GO BIGGER AND BRIGHTER

  • Let the diamond you bring to your beloved be no less than perfect. Let it be magic. Your love truly knows no bounds, and naturally you want to shout that out to the world with a bigger, bolder stone with more brilliance.
  • SFO Created Diamonds mean you can shine bright. With the exact same characteristics as a mined diamond, our lab-grown diamonds allow you to give your loved one a diamond of indistinguishable and impressive quality while being even more affordable. Let us help ignite your dreams.

ETERNAL VALUES

  • How will you choose to symbolize forever? As the world evolves toward more ethical and sustainable models of production, more and more couples are beginning their journey of eternal love with a shared vision of a better, cleaner, and greener planet.
  • SFO Created Diamonds recognize the legacy of our company for its forward‐thinking vision of a responsible business, incorporating the wellbeing of our employees, and care for the environment and society at large.
  • Inclusivity, sustainability and respect lie at the heart of everything we do – so from our heart to yours, we welcome you in.

THE SFO PROMISE

  • SFO is a promise, ensuring heritage, style, innovation and perfection in everything we create. SFO Created Diamonds are engineered with precision, attention to the tiniest detail and quality in every product, design and experience.
  • Built on years of craftsmanship in the mastery of light, SFO Created Diamonds are our promise of a perfect choice.

THE PERFECT CUT

  • Looking for a diamond that expresses your unique personality?
  • SFO Created Diamonds are crafted in six classically beautiful cuts: Round Brilliant, Square Princess, Cushion, Pear, Oval and Radiant.
  • Each is a masterpiece of cutting technology with its own personality, charm, and story, able to bring your imagination to life

A DIAMOND YOU CAN TRUST

  • While all SFO Created Diamonds meet our exacting standards of quality and sustainability, each diamond is unique,just as no two mined diamonds are alike.
  • Because each of our lab-grown diamonds is an absolute original, every diamond nurtured in our labs is evaluated by the industry standard of the 4Cs: clarity, color, cut, and carat weight. Which makes a SFOi Created Diamond a diamond you can eternally trust.

THE TECHNOLOGY

  • A CVD diamond (left) is composed of 100 percent carbon and is nitrogen free. It has more shine and brightness than a mined diamond (right)
  • We are one of the pioneers in the use of Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) technology, and have been instrumental in shaping the lab-grown diamonds industry.
  • With huge production volumes, we proved to the world that India need not just limit itself to cutting and polishing diamonds, but can also become one of the largest producers of diamonds, that too those of the finest quality.
  • The technology being used to grow diamonds using the CVD technique is mind blowing. The reactors for it had been developed indigenously.
  • There is a big opportunity in finding a market for diamonds made in labs in India. We have launched our lab-grown diamond-studded jewellery brand as well.
  • Less harsh on the environment and at least 50 percent cheaper, lab-grown diamonds are increasingly finding favour among consumers, especially millennials looking for greener and affordable options.

Born in a lab

  • CVD is the technique predominantly used in India to grow diamonds. It is an advanced technology that replicates the diamond creation process that occurs under the surface of the earth, in labs.
  • These stones have the same optical, physical and chemical properties as mined diamonds. A CVD diamond is composed of 100 percent carbon and is nitrogen free. World-renowned diamond grading and certifying labs classify such diamonds as a Type II a diamond. The shine and brightness are significantly better than any other diamond.
  • Another process, the High Pressure High Temperature (HPHT) one, which is the predominant technique used in China, uses graphite and a molten metal influx to form a diamond under severe temperature and pressure conditions.
  • With impurities of metal in the diamond, HPHT diamonds are never 100 percent carbon composed, are not the purest and cannot be classified as Type IIa.
  • Lab-grown diamonds are created under the controlled environment of a laboratory, hence are a sustainable alternative as [the process] defies the heavy and harsh techniques which are undertaken for mining diamonds naturally.
  • Since time immemorial, mining diamonds has involved digging up large tracts of land and excavating to deep recesses below the earth’s surface using heavy equipment and machinery. One carat of a CVD diamond ends up saving 109 gallons (498 litres) of water and 250 tonnes of land.
Last November, Rio Tinto ceased mining activity at the Argyle mine in Western Australia. It had been in operation since 1983
  • The huge cost incurred in the mining obviously gets added to the value. Since there is no mining cost involved while growing diamonds in the laboratory, it reflects in the pricing and the customer stands to benefit from it.
  • What’s more, natural diamonds are a limited resource. In November 2020, Rio Tinto ceased mining activity at the Argyle mine in Western Australia. It had been in operation since 1983 and in that time, 865 million carats of rough diamonds were produced.
  • The supply of natural diamonds is decreasing and many of the mines are getting exhausted as it is a limited resource. It is no more worth the while as getting the final polished diamond from mines to markets, i.e, from diamond exploration to potential consumers requires 20 to 25 years, and are a huge investment.
  • Also, in the recent past, there has been no new major commercial discovery that we have heard of.
  • Published in 2015, a Frost & Sullivan report suggested that due to limitation of resources, natural diamond supply will decline to 62 million carats by 2030 while demand will increase (see infographic).
  • Today in the world we consume 150 million carats of natural diamonds. You can very well imagine the kind of environmental damage we are doing by consuming a piece of rock. At the end of the day, there is nothing we can do apart from feeling good and feeling confident by owning one. Why should that come at the cost of hurting our planet or our people? That we think is the proposition that lab-grown diamonds bring to the table.
  • We see the huge gap of 159 million carats between demand for rough diamonds and the depleting supply of mined diamonds in 10 years as an opportunity to be filled with lab-grown CVD diamonds.

Millennial-driven opportunity

  • In 2018, after mining diamonds for 130 years since being founded in South Africa, De Beers launched Lightbox Jewellery, a line of “impeccably made, delightfully priced” jewels with lab-grown diamonds. The decision seemed like a clear attempt to keep up with non-mined diamonds as 21st-century consumers, looking for something both affordable and conflict-free, have embraced the idea.
  • We live in a generation where people are now indulging more in environmentally friendly alternatives which are rather practical and sensible. Our consumers mostly include people who are curious, progressive and adaptive, and we believe in educating our clients about the sustainable methods of creating these diamonds.
  • The environmental benefit is appreciated by consumers of the next generation or the millennials. They want to be more environmentally conscious and invest in products that are sustainable.
  • According to a 2021 Bain & Company report on the global diamond industry, sustainability and social consumerism became more influential in purchase decisions, and the pandemic heightened attention to global health and safety concerns. Regarding diamond jewellery, in China and India, consumers care most about environmental preservation, conflict-free supply chains and the carbon footprint.
  • India has the world’s largest millennial population at 41 crore and climate is the top priority on their minds. Seventy-eight percent of that population prefers to spend on experiences rather than high-value possessions such as a house, gold or jewellery.
  • What’s more, most sustainable alternatives to conventional demand a premium today. However, a lab-grown diamond is one of the few that is scaled to cost less than conventional. Lab-grown diamonds are at least 50 percent cheaper than natural diamonds, therefore they have the unique selling proposition of being sustainable yet affordable.
  • We considers lab-grown diamonds as the next big opportunity. Affordability works as the millennials would want to flaunt it and not put it away in the locker. For the same colour, clarity and cut, the price difference is substantial and a lab-grown diamond is far more affordable than a natural diamond.
  • As a leading producer and exporter of CVD diamonds, India stands to gain from this situation. According to the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council, for the period April 2020 to March 2021, at ₹5175.69 crore, there has been a 74 percent year-on-year jump in exports of polished lab-grown diamonds, over the comparative figure of $421.09 million (₹2,985.3 crore) for the previous year.

Acceptance Hurdles

  • While there is a massive opportunity, there are also challenges. One of the biggest hurdles, are the people who sell natural diamonds and are resistant to selling lab-created diamonds as they feel it would affect their reputation and people would not buy natural diamonds from them.
  • Certification is another concern. In February 2021, WD Lab Grown Diamonds, a leading laboratory-grown diamond producer in the US, announced that it was the first company to be certified under the provisional Certification Standard for Sustainable Diamonds (‘SCS 007’). This achievement grants WD third-party authorisation to use the claims of ‘Certified Sustainable’ and ‘Certified Climate Neutral’ for its diamonds. The climate neutral designation is an exemplary achievement, representing a level of accountability beyond standard Carbon Neutrality by also measuring, mitigating and offsetting the entire spectrum of greenhouse gases, climate pollutants and legacy emissions.
  • Can we prove that lab-grown diamonds are more sustainable?. We must leave the task to third-party certification agencies, in the same manner as WD Lab Grown Diamonds. We as growers can meet the parameters and should not be directly making claims of being sustainable.
  • It is also early days for the Indian market when it comes to awareness among consumers and retailers. While millennials seem open to the idea of embracing lab-grown diamonds as an alternative, we have faced resistance from retailers as lab-grown diamonds are often confused with artificial diamonds. Today we have the margins to milk but the mindset is not letting the retailers milk this opportunity.
  • There is also the concern about the resale value and to address this, many lab-grown diamond jewellery brands  offer buyback and exchange opportunities to consumers.
  • This is just the beginning for India, considering the robust 74 percent year-on year growth in exports that the Indian lab-grown diamond industry has seen. Going forward, the industry will see an even stronger growth in exports as global economies recover and there will be a significant pick-up in consumer demand. And India will have a huge role to play in further shaping the industry worldwide not just because of its expanding production strength of CVD diamonds and manufacturing prowess, but also a huge consumption potential with the largest millennial population.
  • We are mindful of the opportunity but both mined and lab-grown will coexist. We must leave it to the personal choice of the consumer. In a price-sensitive market like India, an affordable diamond becomes an easy buy. And, the big shift is brought about by the millennials, who look for honesty, integrity, certification, sustainability. While the mined diamond is an ultimate symbol of love, lab-grown diamonds are the ultimate symbol of success for the millennials who believe in themselves.
  • We are heavily booked up for these as well as the mined diamonds. 

Diamonds The ‘Crown Jewel’ In Future Electronics

  • We have also successfully converted intrinsically inert diamond into a powerful semiconductor capable of sustaining very high-power and withstanding conditions too extreme for silicon devices.
  • Conductivity is the basis of any electronic device and, without it, diamonds are just very basic insulating materials.

  • We’ve developed technology that modifies the diamond surface to make it conductive and easily controllable, which means we can now start building electronic circuits on its surface.

  • Diamond semiconductors would enable very high-power and high-frequency signal amplification and energy conversion unattainable by other semiconductor materials, making them ideal for applications such as satellite communication and broadcasting stations.

  • Believe it or not, current radio and TV stations still use hundred-year-old technology called vacuum tubes — bulky glass tubes used to control and amplify signals.

  • Silicon chips aren’t used in these applications simply because they cannot sustain high-power operations, but diamond does.

  • Almost all computer chips are built on silicon, a first-generation semiconductor, but diamond is among third-generation semiconductors capable of sustaining higher power operations.

  • People working on telecommunication or power conversion are looking at using gallium nitride or silicon carbide semiconductors, but diamonds could be a cheaper and more energy-efficient option.

  • In deep space applications temperatures can range from a few hundred degrees to minus 100 degrees Celsius.

  • Normal silicon devices would fail but diamonds are very resistant to this kind of harsh temperature change, and also to cosmic rays and solar radiation.

Doping Diamonds

  • Our research team innovated a technique called surface transfer doping by introducing a metal oxide layer just a few atoms thick to withdraw electrons from the diamond surface to enable conductivity.
  • Diamond is like a city with a fantastic highway infrastructure but no vehicles. In the materials world we call the vehicles charge carriers.

  • Our research put vehicles on the diamond roads by introducing charge carriers through the surface acceptors.

  • The metal oxide surface acceptors allow us to extract electrons from the diamond surface, leaving holes — a type of charge carrier with positive charge — to make it conductive.

  • We can control the surface conductivity of diamond by increasing or decreasing the number of carriers on the road, which we can do by changing the type and coverage of the metal oxide layer.

  • Our researchers had to select suitable surface acceptors with an energy level matching that of diamond.

  • We started with organic materials, but certain metal oxides worked best with the desired stability in practical devices.

Spintronics spin-off from 2D surface phenomenon

  • Engineering the diamond surface to accept charges also produced an unexpected quantum mechanical phenomenon that could have implications for information technologies.
  • Our research found that holes confined to the diamond surface formed a two-dimensional (2D) layer that produced a relativistic effect called spin-orbit coupling.
  • Like the spinning Earth orbiting the Sun, spinning electrons can orbit atoms but generate different energy levels through this interaction.
  • Spin-orbit coupling usually happens in heavy-element materials but carbon, which makes up diamond, is such a light element that the effect should have been small.
  • The confinement of hole charges to the diamond surface actually induced this phenomenon and gave rise to a very strong effect.

  • Observing spin-orbit coupling required an extremely low temperature of only a few Kelvins — minus 270 degrees Celsius — which placed stringent requirements on the device architectures.
  • We found diamond devices with palladium electrodes could operate in this extremely low-temperature environment and allow us to observe this intriguing phenomenon.
  • Controlling the spin of charge carriers is at the heart of a new spintronics technology that would enable faster and more energy-efficient electronic devices.
  • A stronger spin-orbit coupling in diamond means we can control the spins of holes more easily with an electric field.
  • That would allow us to fabricate energy-efficient spintronic devices using diamond. That’s perhaps much further away from real applications but is fascinating from a fundamental physics point of view.

Growing diamonds large enough to use in electronics

  • While diamonds have a combination of properties that make them ideal for electronic devices, we are extending the success in achieving a diamond device platform in growing diamond wafers large enough for industrial applications.
  • We need large diamond substrates if we are to fabricate millions or billions of devices at the same time for cost efficiency, but the most common synthesised diamond wafer is only a few millimetres across.
  • We are growing very high-quality diamond with a process called chemical vapour deposition (CVD), feeding hydrocarbon gases like methane with plasmas to grow diamond.
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