Six fields where nothing else survives the position.
Diamond is slow to grow, hard to shape and expensive to inspect. Our customers buy it anyway, because in each of these fields the alternative material has already failed.
High-pressure research
A pair of diamonds, a gasket and a screw produce the highest static pressures reachable in any laboratory, and the anvils are the whole experiment. Inclusions cause failure, strain distorts the ruby fluorescence used to read the pressure, and the culet geometry decides how far the cell can go. We select type IIa HPHT crystals for anvils, match them in pairs, and cut seats and backing plates from the same material.
- Diamond anvil cells for static high pressure
- Raman, fluorescence and infrared spectroscopy under pressure
- Synchrotron X-ray diffraction in cells
- Geoscience, planetary and superconductivity research
Lasers and photonics
An optic that conducts heat five times better than copper does not lens, does not crack and does not need to be large to survive. Diamond windows and output couplers appear wherever optical power density has outrun conventional materials: multi-kilowatt CO₂ and fibre lasers, gyrotrons, Raman converters and long-wave infrared cameras that need transmission from 8 to 14 µm.
- High-power CO₂, fibre and disc laser windows
- Gyrotron and high-power RF windows
- Thermal imaging and spectroscopy, 8 – 14 µm
- Raman laser elements, lenses and prisms
Thermal management
Power density in laser diodes, GaN transistors and RF modules is limited by junction temperature, and the junction temperature is limited by what sits under the die. Silicon carbide carries a fifth of the heat that diamond does; copper less. A diamond spreader shortens the thermal path to the point where the device, not its mount, sets the ceiling.
- Laser diode and VCSEL submounts
- GaN-on-diamond and RF power amplifier mounts
- Microwave and high-density power modules
- Heat sinks for optical crystals and VECSELs
Synchrotrons, accelerators and detectors
A beamline sensor has to tolerate a flux that destroys silicon in hours, absorb almost nothing from the beam it measures, and keep working without cooling. Diamond's low atomic number, wide band gap and radiation hardness answer all three. We supply the full set of beam instrumentation from packaged detectors to fluorescent screens, blade and window monitors, stripper foils and ultra-thin membranes.
- Beam position and flux monitors
- Particle, UV and X-ray detectors
- Vacuum windows, filters and stripper foils
- Dosimetry and fusion diagnostics
Quantum technologies and electronics
The nitrogen-vacancy centre is the most practical room-temperature quantum sensor known, and its performance is set by the host crystal: nitrogen content, orientation, strain and surface quality all feed into coherence time. On the electronic side, boron-doped diamond makes electrodes that survive chemistry that destroys platinum, and wide-band-gap substrates for power-device research.
- NV magnetometry and optically detected magnetic resonance
- Single-photon sources and quantum optics
- Boron-doped electrodes and electrochemical sensing
- Radiation-hard and power-device research
Tooling, metrology and wear parts
In ultra-precision machining the tool edge is the process. Single-crystal diamond holds an edge radius measured in nanometres and wears predictably when it is oriented so that the hardest plane meets the work. We supply oriented blanks and finished plates for tool makers, and the indenters, styli and dies that keep other people's instruments calibrated.
- Dressing and truing tools
- Ultra-precision turning inserts
- Indenters, styli and probe tips
- Wire drawing dies and nozzles
A field not on this page?
New applications are where the material is most interesting. Describe what you are trying to do and we will tell you plainly whether diamond helps and which grade would do it.