MachineAge
Making the
I
CUT
Can a buzzy Silicon Valley start-up producing clear-conscience, lab-grown
diamonds change the way we say “I do”? Molly Creeden reports.
have to admit I didn’t see it coming. My longtime
boyfriend asked if I wanted to take the dog for a walk,
and I put on the kind of shapeless cropped pants you
might wear if you’d just come back from an overindulgent vacation or had recently taken up karate. It was
odd that he wanted to head to the canals, which aren’t
close to our apartment here in Venice, California, and
odder still that we appeared to be wandering around
haphazardly in the dark. I did notice when he lingered
on a picturesque bridge, and then—engagement stories
always pause here—he showed me the ring.
What does it look like? Were you involved in its design? Will it be
a summer wedding, and can you mark me down for the sea bass?
I’ve gotten skilled at answering all the questions. The ring is an Irene
Neuwirth design with a rose-cut diamond that lies flush against my
hand in a gold-and-pavé setting. And despite my hard-earned New
York cynicism, whenever I talk about it, and about how much I love
my fiancé for knowing me so well, my voice takes on a hint of gush.
The stories that we tell about diamonds, and that the diamond
industry tells us, have become as enduring as the substance itself. It’s
one of the hardest materials on Earth—and the ultimate gesture of
love. But for some, the narrative doesn’t start with a trip to Cartier or
clandestine consultations with an antique jeweler, but in a lab where,
thanks to cutting-edge science, the diamond was grown.
Synthetic, or cultured, diamonds are not new. They have been
manufactured for decades, first developed for General Electric in
1954 for industrial purposes and by the 1990s reaching gem-grade
status among select producers. Their rising cachet has a simple explanation: provenance. The supply chain in the diamond industry has
long been associated with conflict and environmental damage, largely
brought into the public consciousness by the 2006 film Blood Diamond. The Kimberley Process, which set requirements for certifying
diamonds “conflict-free,” went into effect in 2003, but in a world of
increasingly judicious consumers, the untraceable status of so many
of the world’s diamonds remains troublesome.
So it was news last year when Blood Diamond star Leonardo
DiCaprio (along with ten billionaires) invested in Bay Area start-up
Diamond Foundry, which had developed a technique for producing
brilliantly clear, colorless, gem-quality stones. The company was
founded by Austrian-American entrepreneur R. Martin Roscheisen,
38
a solar-panel trailblazer of the early aughts, Stanford alum, and allaround varsity member of Silicon Valley. “The diamond industry is
an $85 billion enterprise that’s like the car industry was three years
ago,” he tells me from a bare-bones conference room at Diamond
Foundry’s San Carlos facility. “It needs a technological wake-up call.”
Here is how it works: Diamond Foundry starts with a rough,
earth-extracted Canadian diamond and takes a wafer-size slice of
it—about 7 mm by 7 mm. This is placed in a hydrogen plasma reactor that mimics the conditions on the outer core of the sun (“We’ve
created the sun on Earth!” says Roscheisen, who is boisterous, sharp,
confident, and prone to the occasional evocation of Silicon Valley
demigod culture). Add gases like carbon dioxide and methane inside
the reactor, and atom by atom a crystal lattice is built. To see a cutand-polished cultured diamond is to see, well, a diamond: It sparkles
brilliantly, it refracts light, it is colorless and clear.
The process takes two weeks, Roscheisen explains as we make our
way into the cavernous production room humming with white reactor machines. Since the slightest glitch can affect an entire batch, the
reactors are monitored constantly. “People are eating eggs Benedict
at brunch right now and checking on them from their iPhones,” he
assures me.
Are synthetics the same as natural diamonds? According to the
Gemological Institute of America, a lab-grown diamond is materially
a diamond and can be evaluated using nearly the same standards of
cut, clarity, carat, color, and other technical markers. And yet is there
a world in which, if I were getting engaged again, I’d want my walk
by the Venice Canals to end with a diamond sourced just six hours
north of where I live? Maybe. Cultured diamonds are beautiful, with
an unbeatable provenance—but I’ll admit that the fact that improved
efficiencies in the way they’re grown might eventually make them less
expensive gives me pause. “I’d be open to it, but I’d sort of feel like I
have to justify it if people ever asked, which might come off as pretentious,” said my friend. Another told me she’d absolutely be interested.
“A diamond that comes with a clear conscience? Sign me up.”
To hear it from the Diamond Foundry staff, the opportunities for
gem-grade synthetics are just getting off the ground. They see red carpets, celebrity campaigns, and high-profile engagements ahead. “I’m
really excited to explore the future,” one of their top cutters told me.
“What a powerful statement to say, you know, this diamond isn’t just
forever; it’s for the future.” What’s more romantic than a future? !
GROWTH
OPPORTUNITY
THE BAY AREA–
BASED DIAMOND
FOUNDRY,
LAUNCHED IN
OCTOBER 2012,
HAS DEVELOPED
A PROCESS TO
CULTURE GEMQUALITY DIAMONDS
IN SUPERCHARGED
REACTORS—IN
THE SPACE OF
TWO WEEKS.
PHOTOGRAPHED
BY IRVING PENN,
VOGUE, 1963.