Laser Cobalt Spinel Vivid Blue Facet Rough Lab Created Crystals

These are Czochralski pulled cobalt spinel grown for use in lasers. Each is labelled with its gram weight and letter in the photo and they can be purchased individually

This is cobalt spinel, one of the most purely colored lab created crystals! While it is sometimes found in nature as a very rare and prized gemstone, cobalt spinel is also valuable in industry. It can act as a q switch in lasers, transforming a continuous firing laser into a powerful pulsed laser which releases its energy in discrete bursts. It has the most vivid blue color you are likely to ever see in a gem--normally materials in this color range are soft like hauyne or water soluble like copper sulfate, but cobalt spinel has a hardness of 8 and is ideal for use in all times of jewelry. We only managed to get a limited amount but we're going to do everything we can to secure a steady supply.

Synthetic spinel is a pretty familiar material, but the typical, common stuff is grown by the flame fusion method. While this method is very cheap it has some limitations--it can only produce relatively small pieces and the material produced is not precisely the same as natural spinel. As such is not suitable for high end optical applications, where the more advanced and expensive Czochralski pulling method has to be used. The result is a larger boule of much higher quality.