How to spot a fake diamond

How do you distinguish a fake diamond from a real one?

Diamonds have many fakes. Natural stones like colorless sapphire, topaz, and zircon all look like diamonds.

Then there are many synthetic materials made in the lab such as Yttrium Aluminum Garnet, Gadolinium Gallium Garnet, synthetic cubic Zirconia, Zirconium Silicate (called Zircons), and synthetic Moissanite (silicon carbide).

These materials have almost the same refractive index as Diamond but are just not that rare, costly, or desirable.

It’s quite simple to separate the fake from the real.

Take the stone in your hand and blow on it until it fogs up. Alternately, you can put it in the freezer for a couple of minutes and then take it out.

A real diamond will clear up immediately. Fake ones will stay cloudy for longer.

That’s because diamonds have the highest thermal conductivity (~2,000 W/m/K) of all materials that we know — including metals.

They spread heat extremely well turning all the moisture into vapor right away.

Zircons, on the other hand, have one of the lowest thermal conductivities (2 W/m/K).

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