January 2020 - Lab Grown Magazine

January 2020 | LG | The Lab Grown Diamond Resource Book 20 The Diamond Hall Dr. Howard Tracy Hall, a physical chemist at General Electric (GE) oversaw considerable funding for the Schenectady Laboratories and its experimentation. Braving a severe snowstorm on February 15, 1954, he went to work to continue his experiments with a diamond press . The press was a massive machine capable of producing 1.5 million pounds of pressure per square inch with multiple conical piston chambers, and able to reach 2,760° C. To start the process, Hall packed a graphite tube with iron sulfide. He inserted the cylinder into the metal beast and fired it up. After fifteen minutes and at sixty thousand bars of pressure, a deafening sound erupted, causing Hall to imme- diately stop the operation.Thinking he had dam- aged the equipment, he carefully peered into the apparatus. To his amazement, the tube had exploded, and sprayed dozens of microscopic crystalline dia- monds into the gear shaft. As he examined the crystals, Hall documented that he trembled with anticipation. These small crystals were indeed rough man-made diamonds. With a shaking hand, he wrote on his lab ledger the words “made 1st diamonds at GE.” Those words quickly made the headlines world- wide, advancing GE to newfound heights and Hall’s patented process to world-class fame. The diamond world changed forever.Two weeks later, Hall was promoted and given a raise to $16,000 a year. It was, after all, 1954. >> Copy of original notes made by Dr. Hall indicating the success (in yellow) of creating lab-grown diamonds. (Photo: GE Historical Library) Originally released as an exclusive to The New York Times set to run exactly one year after Hall proved he could manufacture lab-grown diamonds at GE, the news quickly leaked to every major U.S. city newspaper, each giving the invention front page placement the same day as The Times ran its piece on February 5, 1955. At the time, the perceived cost of offering lab grown to market was nearly twice the cost of natural stones, and when cut, the highest weight achieved was less than half a carat. (Photo: The Dayton Times) Hall working with his lab-grown diamond press at the GE Labs in 1955. (Photo: GE Historical Library)