Bubbly Laser Ti:Sapphire Gems, Titanium Strawberry Sapphire Cut Stones

These are faceted stones carved from bubbly titanium laser sapphire. These labgrown sapphires have bubbles in them from the growth process -- we call this variety 'strawberry sapphires' since they have seeds.  These are great little stones that could be made into beautiful jewelry.

Titanium sapphire is a very unusual variety of sapphire, never found in nature. Because even a few parts per million of iron will interact with titanium ions and produce a dark blue, there's nowhere on Earth a crystal like this could grow naturally.

In fact, the purity required is so high that titanium sapphire doesn't get grown with cheaper lab methods either - flame fusion setups have a hard time obtaining the extreme chemical purity needed for pink titanium sapphire.

When it's grown with industrial purity, however, however, the resulting crystal is a bright padparascha-like pink color which shifts between a starburst pink and a more pink-orange depending on the lighting. We were able to get some leftover offcuts from a laser crystal grower--these were not produced for the gem trade but they make for incredible gems.

With a hardness of 9 sapphire is ideal for use in all kinds of jewelry.