Towards growth of single crystal diamond - Designed Materials Ltd

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This is a proof of concept project to find the optimum conditions required to grow singlecrystal diamond on a seed crystal from a liquid carbon source using Designed Materials' proprietary low pressure/high temperature diamond growth process. At present, there are several high value industry sectors where large single crystal diamond substrates would be highly desirable but are currently expensive to access (e.g. aerospace, defense, power electronics). The aim of the project is therefore to scope the ability of this process to grow diamond substrates from seed crystals reliably and reproducibly, and in formats that would suit potential end users. The knowledge gained from this project will be used to produce designs for a prototype reactor that can grow single crystal diamond substrates at size and format that addresses at least one high value industrial application.The project is innovative because it looks to offer several advantages over the current state of the art Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) methods of growing single crystal diamond.Firstly, the process uses relatively cheap feedstock materials and has lower basic energy requirements than CVD. Secondly, it has the potential to be more scalable than current CVD, potentially growing larger sized substrates. Finally, it can deliver much higher concentrations of carbon atoms to the growth surface than