What moissanite
actually is.

A gemstone, not an imitation.

Moissanite is silicon carbide: a crystal of silicon and carbon. It was first identified in 1893 by the French chemist Henri Moissan, in fragments recovered from the Canyon Diablo meteorite crater in Arizona, and in 1904 he established what the crystals actually were. The mineral carries his name.

Natural moissanite is vanishingly rare - rare enough that no jewellery trade could ever have been built on it. Every moissanite set in jewellery today, including every stone ARYAMOND sets, is grown in a laboratory. That is not a compromise on the material; it is the only way the material exists in usable quantity, and it means the stone in a piece is the same stone every time.

It is worth being plain about the category. Moissanite is a gemstone with its own composition, its own hardness and its own optical behaviour, and it is bought on those. It is not a copy of something else, and nothing on this page asks you to treat it as one.

What it is

Silicon carbide (SiC)

A crystal of silicon and carbon. In jewellery it is laboratory-grown - natural moissanite exists but is far too rare to set.

Hardness

9.25 on the Mohs scale

This is the number that decides whether a stone still looks new in five years. Quartz - the hard mineral in ordinary household dust and grit - is 7, so everyday handling does not scratch it.

Refractive index

2.648 – 2.691

How strongly the stone bends light that enters it. A higher index returns more of that light to the eye, which is what reads as brightness.

Dispersion

0.104

How far the stone splits white light into colour. This is the flashes of spectral colour - fire - that moissanite is known for, and it is the highest of the three stones below by a wide margin.

Specific gravity

3.22

Its density. Moissanite is noticeably lighter in the hand than cubic zirconia of the same size, which is one way a jeweller tells them apart.

Optical character

Doubly refractive

Light entering the stone splits into two paths, so facet edges can appear doubled under a loupe. Cubic zirconia is singly refractive and never does this.

Hardness is the number that matters in wear.

At 9.25 on the Mohs scale, moissanite is one of the hardest materials used in jewellery. The Mohs scale is a scale of scratch resistance: a mineral can be scratched by anything above it and not by anything below it.

The reason that matters has nothing to do with dropping a ring. It is dust. Ordinary household and street grit contains quartz, which sits at 7 on the same scale, and quartz is what slowly abrades a softer stone until its facet edges go soft and its surface looks tired. A stone at 9.25 is well clear of it.

So a moissanite stud worn every day keeps its edges and its polish far longer than a softer stone in the same setting. The part of the piece that will need attention over the years is the rhodium finish on the silver, which is a surface and renewable, not the stone.

Brightness, and then fire.

Two separate numbers describe how a stone behaves in light, and confusing them is why descriptions of sparkle are usually useless.

Refractive index is how strongly the stone bends light that enters it, and a higher index sends more of that light back out towards the eye. Moissanite measures 2.648 to 2.691 - among the highest of any stone set in jewellery, and well above cubic zirconia's 2.15 to 2.18.

Dispersion is separate: it is how far the stone splits white light into its colours on the way through. Moissanite's is 0.104, against 0.058 to 0.066 for cubic zirconia and 0.039 for zircon. This is the difference you can actually see across a room - the flashes of spectral colour, called fire, rather than white glitter alone.

One honest consequence: in a large stone that fire is pronounced, and some people prefer a quieter look. It reads as liveliness in a stud or a pendant and as a statement in a solitaire, so it is worth choosing the size with that in mind rather than only the millimetres.

Moissanite, cubic zirconia and zircon are three different things.

Most sparkling white stones in Indian silver jewellery under a few thousand rupees are cubic zirconia. It is a good material, it is inexpensive, and there is nothing wrong with it - but it is not moissanite, and the two are not interchangeable.

There is a second confusion on top of the first. Cubic zirconia is zirconium dioxide, made in a laboratory. Zircon is zirconium silicate, a natural mineral that has been worn for centuries. They are different materials with similar names, and Indian retail commonly says "zircon" when it means cubic zirconia. The table below separates all three by their published measurements.

The practical shorthand: cubic zirconia is softer than moissanite and roughly twice as dense, so a cubic zirconia piece is measurably heavier for its size and its facet edges soften sooner. Zircon is softer again. If a listing does not name the stone, that is worth asking about before buying - at any price.

What to ask before you buy any stone-set silver.

Four questions, and a seller who cannot answer them is telling you something:

1. What is the stone, by name? Not "AD", not "crystal", not "stone" - the material. Moissanite, cubic zirconia and zircon are three answers, not one.
2. What is the metal, by fineness? 925 is solid sterling silver. A piece with no fineness mark may be a base metal under a coating.
3. Is there a finish over the metal, and can it be renewed? A rhodium or gold finish is a surface. It wears, and re-plating is a service rather than a warranty failure.
4. What are the measurements? Stone size in millimetres and the piece's own dimensions. A photograph on a screen has no scale.

What ARYAMOND sets.

Every ARYAMOND piece is moissanite set in 925 sterling silver with a rhodium finish. The stone is named on every product page, with the count, the setting and the measurements in millimetres, so what you are buying is on the page rather than in a conversation.

The colour names on the site - white, red, green and blue - describe the stone you will see. The white stone is moissanite. The coloured stones are laboratory-grown ruby, emerald and sapphire, named as such on each product page; they are not coloured moissanite, and we do not describe them as though they were.