With high quality natural diamonds continuing to command high prices, imitation diamonds are still a market force.
A synthetic diamond is one that was created in a lab and has very similar physical properties to a natural diamond.
A recent break through has led to the creation of synthetic diamonds.
The synthetic diamonds are very expensive and have yet to make any real in roads into the diamond market.
An imitation diamond is one that looks like a diamond, but has a totally different physical makeup.
Paste Diamonds came into existence in the 17th century.
These are created by using fused silica, soda ash, lead oxide and other chemicals including the brightening agent boron.
These types of imitations are fading in popularity.
Cubic Zirconia is created by heating yttrium oxide and zirconium oxide.
These stones have remarkable clarity and if cut correctly are extremely hard to tell from a diamond with the naked eye.
The physical properties of hardness, refractive index and specific gravity are very different from a true diamond.
The cubic zirconia is extremely popular, by far the most popular of the imitation diamonds there is.
Other imitation diamonds include yttrium aluminium garnet (YAG).
The popularity of this stone is fading in favor of the cubic zirconia.
Also the rhinestones, made of cut glass or quartz crystal.
The rhinestones are often enhanced to have more sparkle by foiling (lining the back of the setting with tin foil).
Quite often all the imitations can fool the naked eye, but they all differ in physical properties from a natural diamond.
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