synthetic gems

I was reading online this afternoon about synthetic diamonds, and how there
are "products" like those from Gemesis and/or Apollo, that are really lab
created diamonds with all the characteristics (optical, physical and
chemical) of the natural stones. But my question would regard other gemstone
varieties, and their "lab growing". I saw many sites selling synthetic
sapphires, rubies, alexandrites, topaz... Are they also completely the same
as natural ones, or they're produced diferently, so they aren't actually
identical to the natural stones, if we exclude the optical factor? Thanks!

P. S. This goes especially for blue topaz since I read that it's done from
spinel, but don't know anything about sapphires.

"m4816k" schreef in bericht
...
I was reading online this afternoon about synthetic diamonds, and how there
are "products" like those from Gemesis and/or Apollo, that are really lab
created diamonds with all the characteristics (optical, physical and
chemical) of the natural stones. But my question would regard other gemstone
varieties, and their "lab growing". I saw many sites selling synthetic
sapphires, rubies, alexandrites, topaz... Are they also completely the same
as natural ones, or they're produced diferently, so they aren't actually
identical to the natural stones, if we exclude the optical factor? Thanks!

P. S. This goes especially for blue topaz since I read that it's done from
spinel, but don't know anything about sapphires.



Lab growing and synthetic would suggest that they have all the characteristics
of the natural
stone.
But some sellers use these terms for stones that should be termed "imitation".

e.g. go to the following link:

http://www.thaigem.com/lab_shop.asp

Click on the picture of the "synthetic" alexandrite,
Click on one of the calibrated forms e.g. round
Click on Full Details

Aha, their "synthetic" alexandrite is really a colorchange synthetic korund!

Same for aquamarine and topaz; these are merely synthetic spinel.

Groeten,

Jaap

and how there
are "products" like those from Gemesis and/or Apollo, that are really lab
created diamonds with all the characteristics (optical, physical and
chemical) of the natural stones. But my question would regard other gemstone
varieties, and their "lab growing". I saw many sites selling synthetic
sapphires, rubies, alexandrites, topaz... Are they also completely the same
as natural ones, or they're produced diferently, so they aren't actually
identical to the natural stones, if we exclude the optical factor? Thanks!

Lab growing generally causes different type inclusions than you get with
stones grown in nature.

There are different processes for creating synthetic rubies, emeralds and
sapphires. Hydorthermal (heat and pressure in an autoclave environment),
flux-fusion where you dissolve and recrystallize the materials. These are
synthetic processes and not imitation since they have the same chemical
composition. Imitations do not. Experts can tell the difference between
synthetic and real by the patterns of impurities in the stones.
"m4816k" wrote in message
...
I was reading online this afternoon about synthetic diamonds, and how
there
are "products" like those from Gemesis and/or Apollo, that are really lab
created diamonds with all the characteristics (optical, physical and
chemical) of the natural stones. But my question would regard other
gemstone
varieties, and their "lab growing". I saw many sites selling synthetic
sapphires, rubies, alexandrites, topaz... Are they also completely the
same
as natural ones, or they're produced diferently, so they aren't actually
identical to the natural stones, if we exclude the optical factor? Thanks!

P. S. This goes especially for blue topaz since I read that it's done from
spinel, but don't know anything about sapphires.