The pink diamond is, without question, the most mysterious and coveted stone in the world of fine jewellery. Its formation combines extreme conditions of pressure and temperature with the exposure of the carbon crystal to very specific wavelengths — a combination so rare that the deposits capable of producing these stones can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
A Mechanism Still Partly Unexplained
Unlike yellow (nitrogen) and blue (boron) diamonds, the exact cause of the pink colour in diamonds is not yet fully understood. The colour is known to arise from a deformation of the crystal lattice — an internal strain called "graining" or "plastic deformation" — which alters light absorption. But the precise conditions that create this deformation remain partly mysterious.
Exceptional Hardness
Pink diamonds present a remarkable particularity: their hardness is slightly greater than that of white diamonds. This difference, due to the particularly dense crystal structure linked to internal strain, makes their cutting even more demanding. Diamond cutters must work longer and with greater precision — which further contributes to the rarity and value of these stones.
Nuances of Pink Diamond
The classification of pink diamonds uses precise tone descriptors: purplish pink, pink, pink rose, pink champagne. Each nuance has its own personality, from the most romantic to the most sophisticated.
Laboratory Production
Reproducing the conditions for forming a pink diamond in a laboratory is extremely difficult — partly because those conditions are themselves poorly understood. High-quality pink diamonds therefore remain rare even among lab-grown stones, and their large-scale production has not yet been mastered.