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| Home > Jewelry > Sapphire
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| Sapphire (Greek: sappheiros) refers to gem varieties of the mineral corundum, an aluminium oxide (Al2O3), when it is a color other than red, in which case the gem would instead be a ruby. Trace amounts of other elements such as iron, titanium, or chromium can give corundum blue, yellow, pink, purple, orange, or greenish color. Pink-orange corundum are also sapphires, but are instead called padparadscha.
Sapphire can be found naturally crystal boules. Because of its remarkable hardness, sapphire is used in many applications, including infrared optical components, watch crystals, high-durability windows, and wafers for the deposition of semiconductors, such as GaN nanorods and blue LEDs.
Sapphire is one of the two gem varieties of corundum, the other being the red ruby. Although blue is the most well known hue, sapphire is any color of corundum except red, red corundum known as ruby. Sapphire may also be colorless, and it also occurs in the non-spectral shades gray and black. Pinkish-orange sapphire is known as padparadscha.
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