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Collaborative European Technology Platform for innovation

The French Crystal cluster,
supplier of Excellence to the Luxury Trades,
embracing Values of Corporate Social Responsibility

A wide range of colors and forms, which can be mounted in jewelry or designed for eco-responsible decoration
A wide range of colors and forms
Produced by members of the CRYSTALITE sector, designed and produced by Cristal innov
Crystals: ruby, sapphire, yellow garnet, quartz
Sunset over the Alps Crystals: quartz, blue sapphire, langatate

Give us your specifications and your budget.
We will offer you a design for a unique work, eco-designed and manufactured in France.

You are seeking new technologies and sources of inspiration aligned with fashion values?

The CRYSTALITE brand, bringing together French industrialists, laboratories, and technological institutes, grants you access to the finest luxury technologies based on crystals and stone-based innovative materials in a high standard of RSE values.

DESIGN

By reinventing the use of crystals, the partners of the Crystalite cluster are evolving the luxury design to meet the latest market trends. The complementarity of their technologies offers an inspiring potential to express French creativity through exceptional pieces. Crystalite highlights the ethics, aesthetics, and poetry of synthetic crystals.

TECHNOLOGY

As experts in synthetic crystals, such as quartz for satellites, sapphires for lasers, or even diamonds for electronics, the industrials redirect cutting-edge technologies towards designer decoration. The R&D capabilities of the laboratories grant you access to innovative crystals and materials. Working closely, Crystalite partners can design, execute, and industrialize all necessary technological steps for the manufacturing and quality control of exceptional pieces.

LUXURY

Our ambition: to meet the new challenges of the Luxury and Watchmaking industry in terms of innovation, new customer aspiration and sustainability. Crystalite masters crystal synthesis, enabling the abandonment of outdated mining practices. It creates crystals and materials offering a wide range of colors and textures inspired by nature. Its mastery of multiple technologies opens up an innovation field for integrating new functions and adding value to your products.

Cristal Innov

Innovation ecosystem in crystals and processes, .
CRISTAL INNOV has two main activities covering TRL 4 to 9. Its mission as a technological platform is to bring together the crystal community (laboratories, industries, users) to innovate. In addition to its role in initiating and supporting development projects and/or partnerships, CRISTAL INNOV provides state-of-the-art technological resources (synthesis, shaping, characterization...) as well as expertise and facility customization to meet individual demands.

Its industrial activity develops and produces high-value-added components based on high-performance piezoelectric crystals such as high-quality quartz for space, defense, and healthcare applications.

Drawing on this experience and supported by technological equipment covering the entire production chain (synthesis, cutting, machining, polishing, deposition, characterization...), on one hand, and collaborating with all French crystal stakeholders, on the other hand, CRISTAL INNOV has launched a new sector focused on design and luxury: CRYSTALITE.

Bringing together industrialists and laboratories producing synthetic stones capable of captivating luxury, watchmaking, and design sectors. CRYSTALITE offers a wide variety of synthetic crystals appealing to this industry, including diamonds, rubies, sapphires, amethysts, as well as more unexpected materials, offering unique colors and custom shapes. The main raison d'être of CRYSTALITE lies in its values: An innovative offering created, designed, and produced in France, recyclable, while moving away from mining labor, aligning with the aspirations of a new generation and current trends in fashion and luxury (ethics, carbon footprint, made in Europe….)

L’institut Lumière Matière (iLM)

The Lumière Matière Institute (iLM), a CNRS-University Lyon 1 research unit, is a major player in physics and chemistry research in the Auvergne Rhône Alpes region,particularly in the synthesis and characterization of materials.
The continuum between fundamental research, addressing major societal challenges, and innovation within an ethical and responsible framework is at the core of its approach.

The unit, with its 300 collaborators, works closely with the industrial sector and collaborates with the Cristalinnov platform. It particularly develops processes and carries out the growth of monocrystals in various formats (circular, square, or hollow fibers, ribbons up to 1 meter in length, massive crystals) and the solidification of eutectic materials.

From lasers to watchmaking and luxury, through scintillators, gravitational wave detection, aerospace, and piezoelectric devices, the applications developed at iLM are diverse.

RSA Le Rubis

For over eighty years, RSA Le Rubis has been a specialist in the manufacturing of sapphire crystals, fundamental elements of a market primarily belonging to the watchmaking and watch glass industry. RSA has a strong presence in the ruby market for watch movements and in colored crystals for watch ornaments and jewelry.

Its ability to maintain its position over the years is primarily due to its complete mastery of the sapphire (corundum) and spinel manufacturing process, from raw material synthesis to crystal growth technologies. The oldest method, known as the "Verneuil method," involves melting alumina particles through a high-temperature hydrogen/oxygen flame (2050°C) and solidifying these droplets on a crystalline seed.

Today, RSA's expertise extends to all growth methods, some of which can crystallize white or colored crystals as well as pre-formed pieces. These new capabilities also cater to markets for civilian and military optoelectronic applications.

Diam Concept

Diamond is a mineral with exceptional properties that is sought after for its rarity and hardness in jewelry, and its optical, thermal, and electrical properties for industry. It is a strategic material that humanity cannot do without.

Diam Concept was founded in 2016 by Alix Gicquel, who is globally recognized for establishing the first research team on "diamond growth by plasma" in France in 1990. Diam Concept ethically produces diamonds for jewelry, which are 100% traceable and environmentally friendly. To grow its diamonds, Diam Concept generates a low-pressure microwave plasma using hydrogen and methane. The diamonds are produced by a plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition process.

As the first French producer of laboratory diamonds, Diam Concept aims to become a European leader in this field with responsible production of exceptional quality and tailored to the demands of the jewelry market. Today, its offerings focus on white diamonds ranging from 0.50 to 2.00ct and colored diamonds (champagne, blue, and green).

LMI / LABORATORY OF MULTIMATERIALS AND INTERFACES

The LMI brings together 50 researchers in the field of Material Sciences, particularly in the Chemistry of Molecules and Materials.

The main activities of the laboratory are focused on the design, development, and characterization of molecules, materials, and multimaterials, primarily inorganic.

    The specificity lies in the coordinated implementation of three main types of skills:
  • Design and Synthesis of New Materials and Multimaterials
  • Design and Implementation of Innovative Synthesis Processes: sol-gel, ALD, etc.

The materials studied at LMI exhibit a wide range of morphological diversity: plates, wires, ceramic fibers, membranes, thin layers, nanostructured materials, nanomaterials, and functionalized surfaces.

ARNANO

ARNANO is a spin-off from CEA-Grenoble / LETI (Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Information). Arnano offers microscopic engraving prints using microelectronics technologies. Based on customer needs, Arnano studies the feasibility, proposes technological solutions, designs the pieces and manufactures them in its clean room.

    Arnano develops its activities following 4 product or service lines:
  • decorative pieces for high-end watchmaking
  • sapphire discs with micro-images for ultra-long-term (millennium) information conservation and events
  • a solution to fight counterfeiting using holography
  • technological services on substrates of all sizes up to 150 mm and types (glass, sapphire, enamel, mother-of-pearl, etc.)

By reinventing the use of crystals, the players in the CRYSTALITE sector are evolving luxury design to meet new expectations and are creating exceptional pieces to highlight the ethics, aesthetics, and poetry of synthetic crystals.

From space to design decoration... Quartz clocks for satellites or sapphires for lasers... You may be eager to discover what the French synthetic crystal technology sector, its expertise in shaping them, and its production capabilities can offer you.

Dedicated to the excellence of luxury and watchmaking. On September 30th at the Hôtel-Dieu in Lyon, exceptional clocks that showcase the full range of the sector's expertise will be presented and will serve as a basis for discussions on the technologies offered by its members.

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Technologies developed and parts manufactured by Cristal Innov and its members.

Industrialists

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