Synthetic Diamonds: A Brief History In the early part of the twentieth century, several attempts to synthesise diamond were conducted, and by the 1940s, the temperature and pressure parameters under which diamond is the stable phase of carbon had been established experimentally. Berman and Simon expanded on these findings. Graphite is the stable phase at normal temperatures and pressures, which is interesting. At normal temperature and standard atmospheric pressure, diamond, the ultimate gemstone, is merely meta-stable! Fortunately, converting a diamond to graphite requires a lot of energy, and in an inert atmosphere, a diamond may be safely heated to at least 1500 °C without causing harm. When the temperature rises beyond 1800 °C, however, the material quickly transforms into graphite. Following the availability of tungsten carbide in the 1930s, serious attempts to synthesise diamond started. This exceptionally strong material enabled the development of pressure cells capable of...