Lenses out of Diamonds?

[The Qube]

Hey everybody. I found my old and long missing industrial Diamonds. I lost them back in 2010. At the first moment I was only happy to have them back because of their worth. But now with my new hobby I maybe can use them as lenses.
So here is my question. If I would grind them into lenses, would thaey work well?
I mean would they be better or such a thing? Because I don't want to waste such a expensive material for nothing.

So what do you think guys? :thanks:

 

[Encap]

Here is a link on optical diamond -- Optical Applications of Diamond

If your diamonds are optical quality natural diamonds I would guess they are worth far more as diamonds than a lens.

 

[The Qube]

They are optical quality, they are industrial diamonds. Not natural. I hope you know what that mean.

Edit: Synthetic. I think thats what they are after reading the text. I will sleep over it and think again.

 

[shokkunlasers]

You could but there are no applications for diamond lenses or windows in hobbyist applications.


Edit: Depending on the size of your diamond I would either make to a jewelry for a present or future girlfriend or make a nice always sharp knife like tool out of it.


Second Edit: I just had the idea that you could get your synthetic diamond (I assume it's in a thin plate form) laser engraved so it's something with lasers and it's a nice thing because not many things are written or drawn in something physically hard as diamond

 

[jeffreythe00]

I would say that if you were able to successfully shape your diamond into lens, you would still have far better results if you bought a high quality type of lens coated for the specific wavelength you're trying go use it for. I'm not saying you "can't" use it as a lens. Its just probably not worth because it would not be coated.

 

[Bionic-Badger]

Diamond gems are one of the biggest racket in the world. They're relatively common minerals, and should only be valuable as industrial stones. The de Beers cartel with others have ensured that diamonds are artificially inflated in value though.

It used to be that synthetic diamonds were always inferior in quality to gem-quality natural diamonds. However, when someone from the de Beers cartel encountered a perfectly formed synthetic diamond, the only excuse they could make to try and distinguish it from natural diamonds was that the natural ones couldn't be that perfect.

Of course they took measures, along with their Russian partners, to ensure that such perfect diamonds would not make it to market.

 

[Encap]

Diamond would make the ultimate heatsink----monocrystalline synthetic diamond enriched in the isotope 12C (99.9%) has the highest thermal conductivity of any known solid at room temperature: 33.2 W/(cm·K)

 

[millirad]

Diamonds have a high refractive index of 2.42 due to their density. Therefore a lens would bend the light more strongly than an equivalent typical glass lens.

Not a practical benefit for the amateur laserist, but possibly useful in a laboratory. If the carat weight is small however, not much area for the beam to enter.

 

[The Lightning Stalker]

A diamond lens might be useful in pulsed laser applications if it has a higher damage threshold than silica.
It would also have to be AR coated.