What Is Synthetic Ruby Made Of

Ruby lasers are still in use.

What is synthetic ruby made of. On the other hand production methods keep improving nevertheless if a ruby is reasonably large and still affordable it might be synthetic. Synthetic rubies have technological uses as well as gemological ones. In fact when theodore h. Flux grown pulled and hydrothermal synthetic sapphires can be very convincing substitutes for the natural gem.

Imitation or simulant these are gemstones that try and look like real natural gemstones but are made of an entirely different material. Documented attempts to make rubies date to the experiments of marc a. Color change synthetic sapphire made to imitate alexandrite has been popular since the early 1900s. The first working laser was made by theodore h.

There are two types of lab created rubies which use different types of processing to create the red crystals. If the ruby gem is large then it becomes rarer and even more valuable. The synthetic ruby weighs the same as a natural ruby of equal size. Since synthetic rubies don t have the inclusions and impurities seen in natural gems they were an instant hit with jewelry designers.

Rods of synthetic ruby are used to make ruby lasers and masers. However there is also a limit to how large a lab grown ruby can be made. Because it was so highly prized the ruby was the first gemstone to be made artificially. Synthetic synthetic gemstones are gemstones that are made by man but have a natural counterpart.

For example it is easier to produce a synthetic ruby that is 1 5 carats than find one in nature. The color is the result of combining aluminum oxide which by itself is colorless with chrome creating a mineral known a corundum or ruby. Gaudin a french chemist who produced some synthetic rubies beginning in 1837. Maiman used a solid state light pumped synthetic ruby to produce red laser light at a wavelength of 694 nanometers nm.

The popularity of rubies led scientists to create synthetic rubies in laboratories. If it is a fine a deep red ruby with great transparency and can increase in price to thousands of dollars for each carat. They possess the same physical chemical and optical properties as a natural stone. Synthetic ruby is a ruby that comes in less expensive than real rubies and is oftentimes used to substitute natural rubies albeit a cheap substitute.

There are however slightly different characteristics between the two including tell tale inclusions and growth patterns. Induced inclusions caused star effects in some synthetic ruby and sapphire. Gemologists rely on these differences to identify synthetic from natural. The more you know.