Optical

Optical

Synthetic diamond has the widest spectral band of any known material, extending from ultraviolet to far infared.

Element Six has wide experience in the development of synthetic diamond for a broad range of optical applications.

Often it is synthetic diamond’s optical properties combined with other properties, such as thermal conductivity or radiation hardness, which make it the material of choice in challenging applications. Synthetic diamond has the widest spectral band of any known material, extending from ultraviolet to far infrared and the millimetre-wave microwave band. This, combined with its extreme hardness, high thermal conductivity and chemical inertness, make synthetic diamond the ideal window material for many industrial, R&D and defence optical applications.

The main applications for Element Six synthetic diamond optics are in laser optics, infra-red spectroscopy and radio-frequency (RF) optics.

Our laser optics solutions
Element Six synthetic diamond is widely used in laser optics, including output couplers and exit windows for CO2 lasers, beam delivery systems like beam splitters and Brewster windows, and VCSEL and Raman lasers.

In laser optics, synthetic diamond’s optical, thermal and mechanical properties are used in combination, which enables the highest power levels achievable in CO2 lasers, without the loss of beam quality caused by thermal lensing. Due to the strength of synthetic diamond, even relatively thin windows can survive pressure differences of one atmosphere, keeping absorption levels to a minimum. The durability of synthetic diamond leads to a very long life of the synthetic diamond’s optical properties under extreme conditions.

Our infra-red (IR) spectroscopy solutions
Element Six synthetic diamond is used in IR spectroscopy including ATR (attenuated total reflection) prisms, ATR prisms mounted in holders or probes, bevelled windows and hemispherical lenses.

In IR spectroscopy, the transparency of synthetic diamond in the long IR wavelengths is exploited, in combination with its chemical and mechanical robustness. Sample holders based on synthetic diamond optical components survive the harshest environments and the roughest of treatments. The optics are not damaged by either chemical attack or mechanical maltreatment, so the signal quality is stable in time. These properties have helped to develop FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectrometers robust enough to function extremely well outside traditional laboratory environments.

Our radio-frequency (RF) optics solutions
Element Six synthetic diamond is used in RF optics including exit windows for high power gyrotrons, both mounted and un-mounted, and beam line windows.

Element Six synthetic diamond also plays an important role in developing sustainable energy systems like nuclear fusion. The combined synthetic diamond properties of low absorption in the RF frequency range and its mechanical strength make it a unique solution enabling the construction of two megawatt gyrotrons used to heat plasma in the fusion reactor (in a tokamak). The beam line windows facilitate low loss transportation of high energy radiation from the source (gyrotron) to the target (plasma).

Our synthetic diamond optics for monochromator solutions
Element Six produces HPHT (high pressure, high temperature) IIa synthetic diamond plates for X-ray monochromator solutions. Large 3rd and 4th generation light sources (synchrotrons and free electron lasers) are super-microscopes employing electron beams of very high energy, high brilliance and/or very high pulsating density, to study the structure of materials ranging from novel nano-structures to bio-molecules and giant zeolites. Beamlines with very bright X-rays demand optical windows that can dissipate heat very fast and simultaneously provide excellent optical properties for beam splitters, phase plates, monochromator plates, undulators and filters.

Due to its superior thermal, optical and mechanical properties and its high resilience, synthetic diamond is preferred to other crystalline materials for such demanding tasks. The Element Six-produced type-IIa HPHT synthetic diamond, in particular, is considered to be the ultimate synthetic diamond material for synchrotron optics, due to its high thermal conductivity, and to the low levels of crystal structure defects and impurities which can otherwise distort the lattice.

Element Six HPHT synthetic diamond is cut into large plates of {100}, {110} and {111} crystallographic orientation and polished to a high optical level.