1 , Introduction
Synthetic diamond is a common material used for variety of indus-trial applications. Cutting and grinding tools, surgical scalpels, heatsinks, optical windows and radiation detectors are just a few of them.
Natural diamond has been prevalent in the gem industiy for a longtime. However within the last few years the diamond gem trade has witnessed a drastic surge in production of synthetic gem diamonds.
The advent of the massive use of synthetic diamond as gem material is not a matter of discussion any more it is the reality. Today, synthetic gem diamond rivals the best natural stones in quality while offering significantly lower price and promising to become even cheaper as the technology of synthesis improves.
Uncontrolled mixing natural diamonds with their synthetic counterparts in large parcels of melees and replacing larger natural diamonds with their synthetic counterparts with identical gemological parameters becomes frequent fraudulent practice in diamond trade. The reliable identification and recognition of synthetic diamonds and separation them from natural stones is becoming a fast growing concern
in diamond gem trade and an urgent task of gemological laboratories.This task, however, is not something to easily implement. Since synthetic diamond is a real diamond, not a simulant, its major physical proper-
ties are identical to these of natural diamond. Thus the standard methods of testing, e.g. the methods based on thermal conductivity.