Element Six (E6) designs, develops and produces synthetic diamond and tungsten carbide solutions.

Since 1959, E6’s focus has been on engineering and optimising the diamond synthesis process to unlock innovative, diamond-enabled applications, including ultra-precision machining, drilling, thermal management, optics, wastewater management and quantum-enabled sensing.

Element Six pioneered the development of single crystal diamond using the Chemical Vapour Deposition (CVD) method in the early 2000s.

With production facilities in the UK and California, the company has been at the forefront of a range of new developments in CVD diamond synthesis and associated industrial applications. Its patented technologies also drive a new production facility in Oregon, to supply gem-quality stones to Lightbox Jewelry.

Working closely with a network of global collaborators, Element Six’s engineered diamond research has accelerated the delivery of many breakthroughs in quantum research, including:

• In 2012, Harvard reported isotopically engineered CVD single crystal achieved spin coherence times of seconds at room temperature.
• Alongside Delft University of Technology in 2015, Element Six material enabled the first successful loophole-free Bell’s inequality test, proving for the first time that ‘spooky action at a distance’ is real. This also marked a significant technology step toward a quantum-secure enabled network.
• In 2018, Imperial College London utilised engineered single crystal material in the development of the world’s first continuous-wave, room-temperature, solid-state MASER (microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation).
• Lockheed Martin’s 2019 ‘Dark Ice’ program delivered a DNV-enabled magnetometer that measured the direction and strength of nearly imperceptible magnetic field anomalies, opening up diamond-based quantum devices in GPS-denied navigation applications.

Applications

• Quantum demonstrations
• Masers
• Detection of RF radiation
• Gyroscopes
• Sensing
• Any other project requiring nitrogen-vacancy (NV) ensembles
• Foundamental quantum mechanics
• Quantum computing
• Nano temperature sensing
• Nano magnetic field sensing

Further areas of interest include the consumer, defence and medical markets.