Diamonds at an affordable price
Diamond, the strongest material known to man, has exceptional thermal, mechanical, chemical and optical properties. This makes it ideal for a wide range of industrial applications. It can be used as a film to coat tools making them stronger and extending their life-span. This reduces the need to replace the parts and results in increased productivity. However, in order to make diamond films cost effective for application to a wide range of industrial tools, larger areas have to be coated more quickly and at a lower cost than current methods allow. The diamond films are deposited onto surfaces using microwave plasma systems. In an attempt to improve this process, a new system, "CAP", has now been developed. The CAP, or Circumferential Antenna Plasma reactor, is an energy efficient microwave torch and deposition system which produces diamond in a much more cost-effective manner. This has been achieved by increasing the microwave energy, thereby increasing the maximum coating area. The CAP system is able to produce a diamond coating of uniform quality on surfaces. It also overcomes traditional problems of poor adhesion of the diamond film to the surface, with the resultant coating exhibiting good adhesion and a constant thickness. This new plasma technology, for which the prototype has been developed, has the potential to be implemented in a range of industrial applications. The lower cost diamond coating can now be used on large surface areas in applications such as high performance rotary tools, automobile and aerospace industries and medical laser equipment.
