Pure and Simple White Diamonds

White diamonds, like any other color diamond, is a beautiful and elegant thing to add to any piece of jewelry. It adds a sense of style and flavor to any wardrobe and can be used to dress up the simplest outfit.

A genuine diamond is defined as consisting of approximately 100% carbon in isometric crystallized form. The white color means that the diamond has none or only one impurity and contains varying amounts of nitrogen. If a diamond has little or no nitrogen it makes it colorless (D, E, F color) and increasing amounts still label it as a white diamond but in the “near colorless” range.

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The majority of diamonds, both mined and grown, have some imperfections and this adds some color to a diamond. The color absorbs all visible light except one color which is reflected back and this gives the diamond its color. Different gases create different colors. For example, nitrogen creates a yellowish color and boron creates a blue hue.

Most all diamonds that were mined were originally a yellow color and contain more nitrogen than diamonds grown in a laboratory. Over millions of years, the heat and pressure from deep in the Earth causes the nitrogen atoms to clump into two, four, six, etc. colored centers. These colored centers do not absorb the light and this is what keeps the white diamonds white.

When a diamond is grown in a laboratory, there is not enough time to wait to be able to color treat the yellow diamonds to make them turn white and they have to be grown with little or no nitrogen. It is essential to maintain certain temperature and pressure settings when growing a diamond. If there is any change in either the heat or pressure, the diamond could stop growing. It is very difficult to be able to maintain and control the conditions necessary for the length of time it takes to grow a white diamond.

White diamonds are classified according to their color with categories of colorless, near colorless, faint yellow, very light yellow and light yellow. These are classified further utilizing an alphabetical grade color scale beginning with the letter “D” in the colorless category to the letter “Z” in the light yellow category.

White diamonds are the most difficult diamond to create in a laboratory. A white diamond costs approximately $5,000-$9,000 depending on the number of carats, clarity, cut, shape and specific color.