Analysis

March 22, 2019

Are diamonds the next silicon?

Forget jewellery: Lab-grown gems will fuel advances in medical imaging and quantum computing, says Swiss startup LakeDiamond.


Maija Palmer

8 min read

The cog is a tiny translucent sliver barely visible between the tips of the tweezers. It is destined for the inside of a high-end Swiss watch and it is made entirely of diamond.

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A watch gear made from a single-crystal diamond
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Pascal Gallo in the LakeDiamond lab
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Diamonds are grown on small square "seeds"
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Inside is the reactor where LakeDiamond grows its gems.
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