A New Diamond for new applications

While diamond was mostly used in industrial applications because of its superior hardness compared with other materials, this has recently changed. Other remarkable properties of diamond, particularly its outstanding thermal and optical properties, can be exploited following the development in the early 1990s of a low pressure technique for growing diamonds. The diamond from this technique - known as Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) - is grown from a plasma, rather like a light bulb or the sun. In these systems through careful control over power and gas conditions, it is possible to grow a pure form of synthetic diamond having specific properties and shapes. This has started a range of new industrial applications based on this engineering material.

Other remarkable properties of diamond, for example the outstanding thermal and optical properties,can be used since scientists in the early 1990s developed of a low pressure technique for growing diamonds.

The mechanical properties of CVD diamond, being similar to the abrasive products produced from conventional synthesis, are utilised primarily in cutting operations, with the medical industry as the major application area. Diamond surgical blades enable the surgeon to have the sharpest cutting edge and are many times sharper than the best steel blades. They offer both the surgeon and the patient real advantages, such as precise control of the incision and faster healing of wounds. But industrial diamond with its unique combination of properties can also help in a different medical field, through the fabrication of diamond ball and cup bearing surfaces of an artificial hip joint.

With a thermal conductivity of more than five times that of gold, silver or copper, diamond can be used as heatspreaders or as active electronic devices with far superior performance than conventional alternatives. Recent breakthroughs achieved in the production of electronic-grade diamond material, mean that the prospect of commercially viable diamond power semiconductors is now very real.

But diamond isalso transparent to infra-red and certain types of laser radiation and so can be used as high-performance components, such as laser exit or microwave windows, output couplers or lenses for high powered CO2 lasers.

Having grown hemispherical diamond windows for military purposes, the latest application of these diamond 'domes' is of a civilian nature. The special shape coupled with diamond being an extremely stiff and yet light material makes it ideal for use in HiFi loudspeaker tweeters, with the first 'diamond-enabled' products appearing in the shops at the end of 2004.