“You’re seeing how good diamond is as a conductor of heat,” explains Chris Wort, New Technology Manager at Element Six. “That disk is pure synthetic diamond. It means the heat from your fingers gets to the ice very quickly.”
We’re in the customer demonstration area of the Global Innovation Centre – Element Six’s recently opened research and development facility at Harwell Science Park near Oxford. Wort is talking me through some of the applications the company’s super-hard products can be used for.
The disk I’m holding is a mechanical/thermal grade of CVD diamond (see below). Its uses not only include heat-spreaders for fibre optic booster stations and amplifiers, but also the sharpening of precision grinding wheels.
Optical grade CVD diamond – another Element Six product – is transparent. “That means you can use it in applications like high power laser transmission windows,” says Wort.
“More laser power can be transmitted through a synthetic diamond window,” he adds. “About four to five times more than any other window.”
Element Six’s Global Innovation Centre is the world’s largest synthetic diamond R&D facility. Spread over 5,000 square metres, the high-specification building opened in July 2013 with UK Minister of State for Science David Willetts cutting the ribbon with Philippe Mellier, chairman of Element Six.
The innovation centre employs 114 people – including materials scientists, physicists, chemists and application engineers. It aims to be a one-stop shop for commercial synthetic diamond users.
Element Six picked Harwell because of its international reputation as Oxford’s answer to Silicon Valley in the US (not to mention to Cambridge’s own mini-Silicon Valley). With around 4,500 people working for 150 organisations in the area, the park is famous as a hub for high-tech research.
Back at the demo area, Wort is talking me through another example of Element Six’s own high-tech research.
He’s holding what looks like a bottle of disinfectant spray. This bottle’s filled with water – but it’s not any old water.
“This water kills 99.9 per cent of all bacteria and germs,” he says. “It’s already being marketed in America as a replacement for kitchen cleaners like Cif.”
Wort explains the spray bottle contains a unit that uses synthetic boron-doped diamond to produce ozone in the water through an electrochemical process.
He tells me this turns ordinary tap water into a sanitising agent more powerful than any bleach.
The spray is ‘green’ and has already been approved in the United States by the country’s Food and Drug Administration. It is currently sold through a global catering equipment company.
“Our business model has been clear from the beginning,” says CEO Walter Hühn. “It’s based on two things – engaging with the customer in long-term partnerships, and not only supplying standard materials. We work together with our customers on a long-term basis. We look several years down the road.”
It’s a partnership approach to R&D that Element Six believes sets it apart from its competitors.
This kind of approach could see Element Six working closely with a precision drill-bit manufacturer to make exactly the kind of synthesised diamond ‘cutters’ that the drill-bit company’s customers will need.
“It allows our customers to come up with better tools to achieve a higher price,” says Hühn.
“The Global Innovation Centre is about consolidating all our innovations,” he adds. “It’s an easy way for Element Six to interact with the outside world.”
Much of the centre’s equipment was assembled globally as well. Some of the diamond presses came from an Element Six plant in the town of Springs in South Africa. Other equipment came from company sites in the Swedish town of Robertsfors and Shannon in Ireland.
We get a look at some of those synthetic diamond presses down in one of the research labs. There are two types – the belt press and the cubic press.
Half of each belt press is underground and out of sight, but the bit we can see is impressive enough. This top half looks like a massive drill bit about two metres tall. A capsule the size of a can of beans is fixed at the sharp end (the so-called ‘anvils’) of this section.
“The capsule is filled with graphite powder, and maybe a catalyst, such as cobalt,” says Wort.
The top section of the press is swung into place by a pair of chunky metal claws which slide it onto the bottom half. Then the two halves start pressing – and the pressure they exert is enormous.
“It’s about the same as 5,000 cars piled on top of a tin can,” says Wort. “Or the Eiffel Tower up-ended on another tin can.”
The end result – of course – is synthetic diamond.
On the other side of the lab we can see a cubic press. This looks like six anchor-shaped and -sized chunks of metal slotted together. These chunks of metal are the pressure arms. Somewhere in the centre of this is another capsule filled with graphite. When the machine is turned on, the crushing starts. “It’s the first time there have been belt and cubic presses in the UK as dedicated R&D tools.
Having them here means we can have a quick turnaround on new prototypes. Maybe three weeks from concept to testing new oil and gas drill bit cutters, for example.”
A few metres down the corridor, and we’re in the CVD lab where synthetic diamond is made by a chemical process.
“This is the biggest CVD research lab in the world,” says Wort. “The machines make very pure synthetic diamond.”
The units work by using microwaves to break down gases into a plasma held in a chamber. The result is a synthetic diamond disk, about the size of a CD.
Bigger disks are possible – as much as 15 centimetres across. For some applications they’re worth more than $100,000 each.
“When the technology for this form of diamond synthesis was developed, it was kept secret for about 15 years,” says Wort.
Element Six’s current research includes work in electronics, precision machining and quantum computing.
The company even has a hand in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the international project that’s aiming to unlock the secrets of the Big Bang. The LHC uses high-purity, synthetic diamond as a particle detector, allowing scientists to measure proton particle collisions.
From kitchen cleaner to the origins of the universe – it’s a spread of expertise that Element Six believes keeps it at the top of the synthetic diamond league table.
“We are the clear market leader,” says Hühn.
“No other supermaterials company in the world has the wide coverage we do. We don’t just do standard. The focus is on bespoke products.
“The Global Innovations Centre is all about getting us there,” he adds. “We consolidate innovation and bring it all together with rapid prototyping and testing.
“It’s a good place for us to meet customers – and then help them succeed in their markets.”
Find out more about Element Six and De Beers Group.
