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Grown diamond industry poised for success

BROADENING HORIZONS Grown diamonds are creating newer applications across industries and supporting more diamond-centered research

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INDUSTRY GROWTH The grown diamond industry is poised for great success

Photo by Bloomberg

5th June 2015

By: Kimberley Smuts

Creamer Media Reporter

  

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The grown diamond industry was poised for great success, scientists and researchers from top universities in the US, Belgium, Russia and Taiwan said in December at a roundtable meeting – The Future of Grown Diamonds – hosted by diamond grower IIa Technologies.

IIa Technologies chief technology officer Dr Devi Shanker Misra indicates that a study, done in 2014 by consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, predicts that gem-quality grown diamond production will reach about 350 000 ct this year.

The study also forecasts that, by 2050, grown diamond production for high-technology applications will be about 90-million carats.

The academics in attendance at the IIa-hosted meeting, which was held during the Materials Research Society’s 2014 Fall Meeting and Exhibition, in Boston, in the US, noted that the next step in this industry’s growth was to improve the quality and size of grown diamonds to allow for use across a wider range of scientific applications.

They further agreed that, although the crystalline purity and quality of grown diamonds had improved significantly over the years, there was still room for further improvement.

IIa Technologies notes that grown diamonds are creating newer applications across industries and supporting more diamond-centred research – a trend that did not exist before high-quality grown diamonds became viable.

“There has been a remarkable amount of research and development over the past 50 years into what is needed to take various growing technologies forward. This has resulted in the realisation that diamond is a super material, which will shape the future of the grown diamond industry,” says Misra.

Misra explains that diamonds have superlative properties, from the dispersion of light to physical hardness and radiation hardness, or resistance to radiation.

“The inconsistency of diamonds that are mined makes it impossible to use these diamonds for the many unique properties they have. “However, grown diamonds are changing this reality. The ability to maintain growing environments capable of achieving the highest purity in diamonds allows for grown diamonds to have wider applications than mined diamonds,” he says.

Further, another topic that was discussed during the 2014 roundtable was the practice of using the term ‘synthetic’ to describe laboratory-manufactured diamonds.

“It was generally agreed that the term ‘synthetic’ is technically and scientifically incorrect. “During our discussion, with regard to the definition of the chemical vapour deposition process and diamonds grown using the process, the overall consensus was that a more accurate descriptor would be ‘grown diamonds’ as the physical and chemical properties of a grown and mined diamond are congruent,” says Misra.

IIa Technologies’ experience in grown diamonds has enabled the company to take the lead in helping scientists, physicists and academia to exchange ideas and support them in securing the highest-purity grown diamond supplies for their research. Misra notes that IIa Technologies is keen to host discussion sessions with those who are working in the field of or researching diamond applications or diamond growing.
Applications for Diamond Plates
Research and development has enabled IIa Technologies to grow diamonds of various grades that can be applied to optical, medical, precision-engineering, luxury and electronic applications, besides others. These are the industries that have had no supply from traditional diamond mines, as mined diamonds cannot be guaranteed to be of a specific quality or grade as required by these advanced applications, or to be provided in consistent quantities adequate to sustaining the industries or seeing them thrive further.

“Typically, nearly 60% of our production comprises the diamonds that are desirable for the high-technology industries and scientific applications, and we expect this to continue moving forward,” notes Misra.

IIa Technologies achieved an important milestone in September 2014, when it announced the successful creation of large-size (7.5 mm × 7.5 mm), high-quality, single-crystal diamond plates of unsurpassed quality, after eight years of extensive research.

The breakthrough created unprecedented opportunities for use in highly versatile applications such as radiation dosimeters in cancer treatment (used to measure the dosage of radiation that cancer patients receive during radiotherapy), X-ray detectors and dosimeters, high-powered electronic devices, high-voltage rectifiers and ultrahigh-energy particle detectors.

“We have a research-led approach at IIa Technologies and are working to develop larger diamond plates of 15 mm × 15 mm – double the current dimensions – for single-crystal diamonds. Our goal is to not only raise the quality of the plates but also keep it cost effective,” says Misra.

Larger diamond plates will allow for the making of integrated electronic high-powered and high-frequency circuits on diamonds, leading to potential breakthroughs in using diamonds for electronics.

Misra further notes that, with CVD technology, the use of diamonds can be expanded, allowing for breakthroughs and ground-breaking research.

Grown diamonds are set to replace the way materials such as silicon in electronics, for instance, are applied. Further, diamond is the best thermal conductor, with conductivity four times higher than copper and, hence, an ideal material for thermal management applications. Diamond microchips can handle high-power signals that run ultrahot, without requiring conventional power-hungry cooling systems. The company would also like to continue to be the largest and most innovative CVD diamond growth and research centre in the world.

Edited by Leandi Kolver
Creamer Media Deputy Editor

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