Element Six and Orbray in diamond collaboration
Materials companies Element Six (E6) and Orbray have announced a strategic collaboration to deliver high quality wafer-scale single crystal (SC) synthetic diamond.
Thanks to its high breakdown field and high thermal conductivity, synthetic diamond is thought to be a go-to material for next generation applications in telecommunications, defence, and AI that will place high demands on power and energy efficiency.
Element Six was the first company to build and develop a CVD platform consistent with large area, uniform polycrystalline diamond growth up to 150mm in diameter and, later, pioneered electronic grade SC diamond development and production, commercialising its first SC product range in the 2000s. Recently, E6 opened a CVD facility in Gresham, Oregon, enabling sustainable, scale production of high-quality SC synthetic diamond products.
In parallel, Orbray pioneered the development of a unique heteroepitaxial process to grow SC diamond on cost-efficient sapphire substrates, demonstrating milestone results of SC deposition up to 55 mm diameter.
The partnership will combine Orbray’s innovative approach to scaling SC CVD diamond with E6’s large area deposition system and expertise in making high-purity SC diamond, to deliver a reliable supply of high-quality, wafer-scale, single crystal diamond. These will target applications such as 6G wireless components, advanced power and RF electronics, sensing, thermal management, and quantum devices.
Riyako Namiki, president and CEO at Orbray, said: “The strategic collaboration between Element Six and Orbray represents the next milestone to unlock a new era of single-crystal diamond applications, delivering unprecedented competitive advantage and new heights of performance to an ever-growing range of global customers.
“Through its world-leading range of disruptive single-crystal, diamond-enabled solutions, Element Six has already accelerated key advances in a wide range of novel applications, enabling significant milestones such as the identification of Higg’s boson and the advancement of optics technology for metrology in the pharmaceutical industry.”
Siobhán Duffy, CEO at Element Six, said: “Both Element Six and Orbray have many distinctive traits in common: a heritage of excellence and trust, spanning over eight decades, as well as a drive for innovation and a desire to push the boundaries of technology to achieve ever-better solutions that can benefit the world.
“This strategic collaboration will allow us to combine our respective core competencies towards the development of a world’s first: the highest quality wafer-scale single crystal synthetic diamond.”
