Laser Ruby Facet Rough Lab Created Crystals

These are pieces of vivid pink-red ruby grown for use in lasers.  It has a rich base color that ranges from red to strong red-pink paired with strong red fluorescence. The stones are each labelled with their letter and weight and can be purchased individually.

This is the most classic gem produced by science: laser ruby. In a laser it would be cut into a cylinder or pulled into fiber, charged up with photons from the sides and emit a beam of light out of the end--the very first laser was built with a ruby. As you would expect for this requires a very high standard of chemical purity and structural perfection--when energizing a crystal imperfections tend to heat up and explode. Unlike most classic laser rubies which are grown by czochralski pulling this material was grown by kyropolis pulling, which allows for the creation of much larger crystals.  

We were really lucky to get our hands on some very fine material from contemporary laser production.  We don't know the full details, beyond the growth method--the pieces we got did have some bubbly zones and the color is not perfectly uniform though, both of which are reasons to reject it for technical usage.  Kyropolis growth is normally far too expensive for producing ornamental crystals which is why most synthetic rubies you're likely to run across are lower quality material grown by the much cheaper flame fusion process. Fortunately for us laser rod production requires long uninterrupted sections of crystal, so even minor cracks can disqualify sections of a boule and allow us to get it for a more affordable price.

Note that, while our supplier did specify these were from laser production, it is possible that they were grown for some other demanding application like use in watches--I just want to be completely up front about that since ruby is grown for a few different uses and I don't have strong evidence of the intended use, though I am 100% confident on the growth method. One thing that is for sure is that these were not grown for use as gems since they would never have been rejected for that purpose--they will cut spectacular stones without any flaws!

This batch has a rich pink-red to red without any orange tones and strong red-pink fluorescence.

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