Dawn of the Diamond Age

There is this new process called chemical vapor deposition (CVD) that allows the practical creation of man-made diamonds. It has been researched and perfected by a company called Apollo Diamond (started by a former Bell Labs scientist). "Man-made diamonds with potential". So why is this important? Aside from man-made gemstones, this will allow a new age of semiconductors based on diamond wafers instead of silicon. Diamonds are the hardest, great conducting, and best heat dissipating material known today. Being able to manufacture these will be the start of a new age of technology similar to what steel did for the Industrial Age and silicon did for the digital age.

An unplanned side effect of this new technique was the creation of gem stone diamonds that are almost identical to mined diamonds. At any rate, using these manufactured diamonds will permit 3D storage in crystal structures. This would allow a future digital multimedia device (i.e. iPod) to store 10,000 movies instead of 10,000 songs. Another use would be design of very high powered lasers (industrial and military), and ultra fast computers with none of the heating problems of todays silicon based circuit boards. This could be the dawn of a new age based on diamonds.