Diamond Technology

Diamond is an important material with many properties that make it useful across a wide range of engineering and scientific applications. Using laser-based manufacturing technologies developed by the group, we are advancing methods for the laser processing of diamond to make useful devices.

In particular, we develop laser fabrication methods with adaptive optics, which enable the manufacture of structures deep within a synthetic diamond slab, creating new possibilities in diamond devices.

Our work in this area involves collaborations with a number of internal and external partners. Commercial applications of the technology are developed by spin-out company Opsydia.

An array of nitrogen-vacancy centres being written into diamond.

High energy laser pulse fabrication

High energy laser pulses induce a graphitic phase in the diamond, in which diamond takes on some of the properties of graphite. This can be used to create electrical links embedded within the diamond.

Because of the superior radiation hardness of diamond crystal, such technologies are particularly useful for manufacturing forms of radiation detector. We work as part of the RD42 collaboration at CERN to develop new forms of detector for high energy particles in the Large Hadron Collider. We also work with the Diamond Electronics Group at University College London.

Lower energy laser pulse fabrication

Lower laser pulse energies allow gentler modifications to the diamond crystal lattice. This includes the creation and diffusion of vacancy and interstitial crystallographic defects, in which localised irregularities are introduced to the regular spacing of atoms within the crystal.

An application of this is the fabrication of colour centre defects, which change the way in which the diamond crystal interacts with light. An example is the nitrogen-vacancy, which underpins a range of quantum technologies.

A photoluminescence image of single nitrogen-vacancy defects
manufactured in diamond.

Our work in this area involves collaborations with the Photonic Nanomaterials Group at the University of Oxford, the Quantum Technology lab at the University of Warwick, the Quantum Hub at Heriot-Watt University.

Publications

Laser writing of coherent colour centres in diamond
Yu-Chen Chen, Patrick S. Salter, Sebastian Knauer, Laiyi Weng, Angelo C. Frangeskou, Colin J. Stephen, Shazeaa N. Ishmael, Philip R. Dolan, Sam Johnson, Ben L. Green, Gavin W. Morley, Mark E. Newton, John G. Rarity, Martin J. Booth & Jason M. Smith Nature Photonics 11, 77–80 (2017)

Laser writing of individual nitrogen-vacancy defects in diamond with near-unity yield
Yu-Chen Chen, Benjamin Griffiths, Laiyi Weng, Shannon S. Nicley, Shazeaa N. Ishmael, Yashna Lekhai, Sam Johnson, Colin J. Stephen, Ben L. Green, Gavin W. Morley, Mark E. Newton, Martin J. Booth, Patrick S. Salter, and Jason M. Smith Optica 6, 5, 662-667 (2019)

Laser Engineering Nanocarbon Phases within Diamond for Science and Electronics
Patrick S. Salter, M. Pilar Villar, Fernando Lloret, Daniel F. Reyes, Marta Krueger, Calum S. Henderson, Daniel Araujo & Richard B. Jackman ACS Nano 18, 4, 2861–2871 (2024)

New test beam results of 3D and pad detectors constructed with poly-crystalline CVD diamond
M. Reichmann, A. Alexopoulos, M. Artuso, F. Bachmair, L. Bäni et al., Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 958 (2020)

A single-crystal diamond X-ray pixel detector with embedded graphitic electrodes
C. Bloomer, M. E. Newton, G. Rehm & P. S. Salter J. Synchrotron Rad. 27, 599-607 (2020)