Element Six's Synthetic Diamond Proven as Viable Material for Sophisticated Optical Components and Applications

Element Six, the world leader in synthetic diamond supermaterials and member of the De Beers Group of Companies, today presented new data and announced that its high purity single crystal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) diamond material has been proven for use in intracavity cooling of disc lasers and in development of the first ever tunable diamond Raman laser system—forging new ground in enabling a variety of emerging optical components and demonstrating adoption of the material in advanced, commercial applications.

Element Six's high purity single crystal CVD diamond has the highest thermal conductivity of any material at room temperature (up to 2200 W/mK). Combined with low absorption coefficient at a number of key wavelengths, the material gave the University of Strathclyde the ability to demonstrate the first ever tunable, continuous-wave, diamond raman laser.

Synthetic diamond's transparency over a broad range of wavelengths, excellent power handling properties and highest Raman gain of any known crystalline material allowed University of Strathclyde engineers to overcome a number of challenges typically associated with other materials. The university used synthetic diamond to pave the way for higher output powers at wavelengths that are challenging to generate with conventional lasers.

Dr. Alan Kemp, senior research fellow, the University of Strathclyde, said of the achievement, "Synthetic diamond removed the thermal conductivity barriers associated with other materials, allowing us to successfully demonstrate higher power Raman lasers. This paves the way for much wider use of this unique and enabling material in solid-state laser engineering."

Furthermore, the leading photonics and laser manufacturer M Squared Lasers, have leveraged Element Six's CVD diamond in a patented technique as a key enabler in its Dragonfly semiconductor laser. These two achievements underscore CVD diamond's valuable role as material for solid-state laser engineering, even in the most demanding intracavity applications.

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