Moissanite is silicon carbide, with a Moh Hardness of 9.6. It is a good simulant, but not the "Real Thing".
Years ago, the blue LED was a kind of Holy Grail..If only someone could make one, with the red and green LED's available, RGB large monitors could be made! Cree Research was able to grow pure silicon carbide, which had the appropriate photonic bandgap for making blue LED's. It did not take them long to spin out another company to grow the gem material. There really is a mineral called "Moissanite", naturally-occurring SiC crystals found in meteorites.
So those huge color displays at stadiums, Disney World, etc, when viewed up close, have arrays of red, green, and blue LEDs, like the pixels in your monitor, and are, in a way, responsible for the Moissanite industry.
But there is nothing like diamond, whether from the ground or from a reactor.
They blow moissanite away. They are REAL flawless diamonds. I sent an email out to that company as a curiousity and they are making yellow, flawless diamonds. They will also be making blue ones in the future.
Text of the email I got back from them.
Thank you for your interest in our beautiful canary yellow cultured diamonds. We have not yet rolled out our retailer network. We plan on being in 6 to 8 locations by this holiday season. Until we establish our network of resellers, we are selling direct and through our Internet partners. You might contact your local jeweler and request that they contact our sale department. If you would like to look at some stones on-line, please visit our web site www.gemesis.com or visit Takara at www.takaradiamond.com. Although we do not sell directly through our site, you can call us or e-mail us with specific information regarding what size, color and cut you are interested in and we can help you choose your cultured diamond.
We currently have most cuts in size range between 0.2 and 1.5 carats. Our prices range from $1750 per carat for smaller stones up to $3250 per carat for VS quality fancy yellow diamonds over one carat. We do have some good discounts on some of our stones as this is our initial introduction to the market. Our larger sizes are moving fast due to the tremendous amount of interest that the recent publicity has generated for us, so please let us know what type of stone you are interested in. Again, I appreciate your interest in Gemesis Cultured Diamonds. Please call us at 941 907-9889 if we can answer any questions for you.
Best regards,
B. Davidson
Product Director
The Gemensis Corporation
Hope it helps drive DeBeers into the ground.