What Is Moissanite? The Silicon Carbide Story

Moissanite is crystalline silicon carbide (SiC), a naturally occurring mineral first discovered in 1893 by French chemist Henri Moissan, a Nobel Prize winner, in fragments of the Canyon Diablo meteorite in Arizona. He initially mistook the tiny crystals for diamond because of how much they sparkled. It took years of further analysis to confirm they were something entirely different, a mineral that didn’t have a name yet. It was later named moissanite in his honor.

Natural moissanite is extraordinarily rare, rare enough that it’s essentially never mined commercially. Nearly every moissanite gem in the world today, including every stone Amison uses, is grown in a lab under controlled conditions that replicate how the crystal forms in nature. The result is the same silicon carbide structure Moissan found in that meteorite crater, engineered to be consistent, available, and cut for jewelry.

Moissanite is not a stand-in for another stone. It’s its own gemstone, with its own origin story, its own atomic structure, and its own identity.

Full guide: Is Moissanite Real? A Straight Answer, and What to Say When Someone Asks