Diamond

Diamond is believed to be one of the most powerful of stones. Said to offer access to Divine energy, the stone is often used to attract love, respect, and emotional growth while cleansing the aura from negativity. It is often worn on the Third Eye chakra to improve mental clarity and provide healing energy to the physical body.

When buying diamond, consider the following key factors that significantly impact their value:

1.Cut: The cut, being the most significant factor, affects how well a diamond can reflect light. A well-cut diamond showcases great brilliance and scintillation. Non-round diamond cuts have less brilliance due to varying facet angles.

2.Color: The closer its color is to being colorless, the higher its value. The GIA color grading system assigns a value from D (colorless) to Z (tinted). Fancy colored diamond has a separate grading system.

3.Clarity: Clarity refers to the inclusions inside a diamond. They are graded based on what can be seen at 10x magnification. Grades range from Flawless (no inclusions visible at 10x) to I1/I2 (visible inclusions), with numerous levels in between.

4.Carat: Carat or weight is straightforward to understand—larger diamond is rarer and more desired, hence costlier.

It is crucial to assess the diamond based on these four characteristics, known as the 4Cs. However, buyers should also consider the diamond shape, girdle proportions, and overall symmetry. It's often better to prioritize quality over size when purchasing a diamond.

Diamond is an extremely popular gemstone. However, because it is the hardest known naturally occurring mineral, it is commonly used to make extremely tough drills and blades used to penetrate other hard materials. Many dentists use diamond-tipped drills to treat cavities and polish teeth.

The diamond was thought to represent the sun in Ancient Egypt, whilst Hindus in Ancient India believed that they could attract lightning. Ancient Greeks and Romans thought diamonds were the tears of gods. Diamonds also symbolize faithfulness and commitment between two people in a relationship, which is why, in some cultures, a diamond ring is a symbol of engagement or intention to marry.

The most common crystal structure of diamond is called diamond cubic. It is formed of unit cells (see the figure) stacked together. Although there are 18 atoms in the figure, each corner atom is shared by eight unit cells and each atom in the center of a face is shared by two, so there are a total of eight atoms per unit cell. Each side of the unit cell is 3.57 angstroms in length. A diamond cubic lattice can be thought of as two interpenetrating face-centered cubic lattices with one displaced by 1/4 of the diagonal along a cubic cell, or as one lattice with two atoms associated with each lattice point. Viewed from a <1 1 1> crystallographic direction, it is formed of layers stacked in a repeating ABCABC ... pattern. Diamonds can also form an ABAB ... structure, which is known as hexagonal diamond or lonsdaleite, but this is far less common and is formed under different conditions from cubic carbon.

Diamonds in the mantle form through a metasomatic process where a C-O-H-N-S fluid or melt dissolves minerals in a rock and replaces them with new minerals. (The vague term C-O-H-N-S is commonly used because the exact composition is not known.) Diamonds form from this fluid either by reduction of oxidized carbon (e.g., CO2 or CO3) or oxidation of a reduced phase such as methane. Using probes such as polarized light, photoluminescence and cathodoluminescence, a series of growth zones can be identified in diamonds. The characteristic pattern in diamonds from the lithosphere involves a nearly concentric series of zones with very thin oscillations in luminescence and alternating episodes where the carbon is resorbed by the fluid and then grown again. Diamonds from below the lithosphere have a more irregular, almost polycrystalline texture, reflecting the higher temperatures and pressures as well as the transport of the diamonds by convection.