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Diamonds Diamond may well be the world's most versatile engineering material as
well as its most famous gemstone. The superiority of diamond in so many
diverse industrial applications is attributable to a unique combination of
properties that cannot be matched by any other material. For example,
diamond is the strongest and hardest known material and has the highest
thermal conductivity of any material at room temperature. Diamond that does
not meet gem-quality standards for color, clarity, size, or shape is used
principally as an abrasive, and is termed "industrial diamond." Even though
it is more expensive than competing abrasive materials, diamond has proven
to be more cost effective in numerous industrial processes because it cuts
faster and lasts longer than any rival material. Synthetic industrial is
superior to its natural diamond counterpart because it can be produced in
unlimited quantities, and, in many cases, its properties can be tailored for
specific applications. Consequently, manufactured diamond accounts for more
than 90% of the industrial diamond used in the United States.
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