Natural diamonds are made of carbon, a chemical element which becomes an intensely hard and lustrous stone when put under intense pressure and heat for billion years. Rare and precious, it is no wonder that the best quality diamonds command the highest prices. When expertly cut with facets, diamonds flash with a bright intensity of light from their inner core, giving them their radiant natural beauty. Since their discovery around 6,000 years ago, diamonds have been valued for their beauty, rarity and hardness, and have become closely intertwined with emotional expression of love and power. Diamonds are one of the most expensive natural materials in the world, and like all expensive things, mankind constantly seeks to clone a cheaper, mass-produced version. Today, in diamond market, there are two methods of manufacturing synthetic diamonds: High Pressure High Temperature (HPHT) and Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD).

A synthetic diamond (also known as a laboratory-grown diamond, a cultured diamond, or a cultivated diamond) is a diamond produced by a controlled process, as contrasted with a natural diamond created by geological processes or an imitation diamond made of non-diamond material that appears similar to a diamond. Synthetic diamond is also widely known as HPHT diamond or CVD diamond, after the two common production methods (referring to the high-pressure high-temperature and chemical vapor deposition crystal formation methods, respectively). While the term synthetic may sometimes be associated by consumers with imitation products, synthetic diamonds are made of the same material as natural diamonds—pure carbon, crystallized in an isotropic 3D form.

In the HPHT method, there are three main press designs used to supply the pressure and temperature necessary to produce synthetic diamond: the belt press, the cubic press and the split-sphere (BARS) press. Diamond seeds are placed at the bottom of the press. The internal part of press is heated above 1400 °C and melts the solvent metal. The molten metal dissolves the high purity carbon source, which is then transported to the small diamond seeds and precipitates, forming a large synthetic diamond.

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is a method by which diamond can be grown from a hydrocarbon gas mixture. Since the early 1980s, this method has been the subject of intensive worldwide research. Whereas the mass-production of high-quality diamond crystals make the HPHT process the more suitable choice for industrial applications, the flexibility and simplicity of CVD setups explain the popularity of CVD growth in laboratory research. The advantages of CVD diamond growth include the ability to grow diamond over large areas and on various substrates, and the fine control over the chemical impurities and thus properties of the diamond produced.