Designing diamond: General Industry Coverage

Like the substance itself, developing new synthetic diamond supermaterials is extremely hard. When reviewing its new product development performance a few years ago, Element Six determined it wasn’t effective and efficient enough and the company needed to increase its innovation performance, according to Steve Coe, executive director of group innovation for Element Six.

To do so, the synthetic diamond manufacturer consolidated its four R&D centers spread around the world and officially opened the 60,000-sq.-ft., $32 million Global Innovation Centre, Harwell, U.K., in early July. “The idea was that for a company of our size, we needed to consolidate into one center so we could have much better communication between our R&D teams and much better coordination of our activities,” Coe said, noting 114 people work at the GIC.

Coe added that the country’s strong science and engineering talent base enables Element Six to better attract the best and brightest workers, and being less than an hour from Heathrow Airport makes it more convenient for customers to visit and interact with the company’s scientists. “We do a lot of product development in collaboration with our customers,” he said. “It gives us the opportunity to better understand their needs and ultimately develop diamond products that better meet their requirements.”

In addition to being used to make PCD, PCBN and single-crystal diamond tools and abrasive products, Element Six’s products are found in a multitude of applications. Recent examples include a diamond road pick that lasts 40 times longer than a conventional road pick, sensors in the Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator and tweeter domes for Bower & Wilkins 800 Series Diamond loudspeakers.

Courtesy of Element Six

An Element Six scientist uses a high-pressure, high-temperature press at the company’s Global Innovation Centre to create synthetic diamond.