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Chintan Suhagiya is only 26, but already has seven years experience working in India’s diamond industry.<\/b><\/p>\n
Starting out, he ferried diamonds around his company, based in the world’s diamond polishing capital, Surat in western India.<\/p>\n
But over the years he learnt how to inspect diamonds and now he grades their quality, using specialist equipment.<\/p>\n
His career has been transformed by a seismic shift in the diamond industry. Until two years ago, all the diamonds he inspected were natural – pulled from the ground at diamond mines. <\/p>\n
Now he works with diamonds grown in special machines, part of the industry that barely existed 10 years ago but, thanks to improved technology, has seen explosive growth.<\/p>\n
Lab-grown diamonds (LGDs) so closely resemble natural diamonds that even experts have to look closely.<\/p>\n
“No naked eye can tell the difference between natural and lab-grown diamonds,” says Mr Suhagiya.<\/p>\n
“The natural diamonds and lab-grown diamonds are so similar that once, even after a lab test there was a confusion about the origin of a diamond. The diamond had to be tested twice to make sure that it was a lab-grown,” he says.<\/p>\n
Natural diamonds are formed at great heat and pressure deep underground and, since the 1950s, scientists have been trying to recreate that process above ground – resulting in two techniques.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n