The early 2000s also saw huge improvements inthe growth of synthetic diamonds by the chemicalvapor deposition (CVD) method. Prior to this decade,the vast majority of single-crystal CVD syntheticdiamonds consisted of very thin (≤1 mm) plates orcoatings on seed crystals (Wang et al., 2007). By2010, faceted colorless, brown, yellow, and pinksamples up to ~1 ct were being produced by at leastone U.S. company (Apollo Diamond Inc.) and werebeing submitted to the GIA Laboratory for gradingreports. Crystals as large as 10 ct have reportedlybeen grown in university and research laboratoriesght