LGDinTECH Insights: Episode 1
Welcome to the debut episode of LGDinTech Insights, marking the one year anniversary of LGDinTECH, a membership consortium devoted to the prime growers of technology-grade diamond material and the researchers and tech product developers that will benefit from its use.
Hosted by tech futurist Alfred Poor and LGDinTech Co-founder Liz Chatelain, this episode explores how the evolution of technology-grade grown diamond material is quickly becoming a once-in-a-lifetime transformative opportunity for technology, manufacturing, and sustainable development.
Hear from industry pioneers like Bob Basnett and Bill Holber of Plasmability, as well as quantum researcher Bart Machielse. From aerospace and defense to quantum computing and medical devices, discover how technology-grade diamond material is enabling the next wave of high-performance tech.
Tune in each month to explore how technology-grade diamond is transforming the world.
Technology-grade Grown Diamond is Transforming the World
Transcript
Alfred: [00:00:00]
What do you know about Diamonds? This is the first edition of LGD in Tech Insights. It’s a podcast series launched on the first anniversary of LGD and Tech, and you’re gonna learn about how diamonds are poised to disrupt many technology industries. LGD in tech is an ecosystem of lab diamond producers, post growth service providers, tech product developers, equipment manufacturers, research institutions.
All of them are dedicated to developing the use of lab grown diamond. That’s LGD Lab Grown Diamond. It’s also referred to as synthetic diamond. They’re looking for ways to use this for technology and scientific applications. So if you’re working in aerospace, defense, high powered electronics, laser systems, [00:01:00] medical devices, microwave optics, photonics, quantum computing, we’re semiconductors.
This podcast is for you. Today we’re celebrating the first year anniversary of LGD and text Pioneering Innovations and the introduction of lab grown diamond for tech sectors. I’m your host Alfred, and I’m joined today by the co-founder and CEO of LGD in tech, Liz. Liz, congratulations to you and your team on LGD in Tech’s first anniversary.
It must be very exciting and a bit of a challenge to launch a global trade association dedicated to an evolving product that still has limited exposure, and at the same time be focused on multiple major areas of potential usage. Uh, that’s an awful lot to accomplish in one year.
Liz:
Well, Alfred, you’re kind of making us sound like we’re crazy, but I don’t know, maybe we are a bit crazy.
I think the reality is, is that diamond is coming on strong and that grown diamond has so many advantages and we. We’re just trying to make sure everybody is up to speed with this. We started LGD in tech as a membership association, building an ecosystem, because Grown diamond improves. You’re gonna hear this a lot.
The functionality, longevity, safety of everything it touches, and it can be sustainably produced. And yes, grown diamond can be grown pretty effectively, sustainably and economically now, not something that was available just a few years ago. Growing technology grade diamond is an amazing process and it could even save lives.
Alfred:
Save lives. Now you’ve got me interested. How can diamonds save lives?
Liz:
Diamond is the world’s best heat spreader. Now grown diamond can be produced quickly and economically, as I mentioned, and it can put an end to batteries overheating through better thermal management. So therefore. Probably saving lives.
Definitely saving the environment. This is really why we launched LGD and Tech a year ago. That’s really cool.
Alfred:
Now, I know a little bit about synthetic diamonds, but that’s been in the context of being used as a braces in industrial. Applications. I don’t know that much about how grown diamonds can apply to technology.
Liz:
question. It’s been around for about 80 years. I. But not to the level of application it is at now. In fact, GE scientists started growing Diamond in a lab in the 1930s. Grown Diamond is now being tested and used in tech applications like never before, and it’s on the leading edge of revolutionizing some of them, including quantum.
We like to say Quantum isn’t gonna reach its full potential without grown Diamond. If you haven’t seen Grown Diamond before, by the way, if you really don’t know what we’re talking about here is a grown diamond. This is about, uh, a five by five mm, and it’s probably a half a mm. Thick, but diamond can be grown and then go through a post growth process and fit into multiple applications.
Alfred:
SEMICON is just. A terrific show, and I hope you have a lot of people show up.
So, so that’s one of the main reasons why you started LGD in tech is, is because you see that diamond is now on the brink of becoming a, a major material factor in, in high tech applications.
Liz:
And on our website we just keep, you know, replaying our mantra that groan diamond improves the functionality and longevity of everything it touches and it can be sustainably produced.
Because it can be grown using solar energy or other renewable energies, and it can be grown quickly within days to weeks, and it lasts forever because it’s diamond. So grown diamond is new to most tech industries, but it’s being tested in all of them. We’re now exploring grown [00:06:00] diamond because of how quickly it can be produced and how economically, so this really opens the door to most tech industries, and these sectors could represent over $4 trillion globally.
Alfred:
I know that some of our listeners probably don’t come from a material science background, so can you tell me a little more about why diamonds are so special and not just some shiny sparkly thing?
Liz:
So in our consortium. We are really focused on 10 different industries, so we know that diamond can be important to all of them. I mean, diamond grown, diamond has wide band gap, as I mentioned. It has outstanding electrical transport. I. Of course it’s the hardest material. It has NV centers. [00:07:00] That’s really important, especially for quantum, and it’s a hundred percent carbon.
Diamond is a hundred percent carbon, so it can be used for medical devices embedded in people without rejection. In most cases, and of course it’s thermal management is, is like nothing else that we’ve ever created and it’s because it’s the hardest material. Erosion prevention is really crucial. So all of these things are important advant advantages, and you know, on top of it, it really has all these applications out there.
The chamber is then filled with a carbon rich gas, usually methane, along with other gases. Then the gases are ionized into plasma using microwaves, lasers, and other techniques. The ionization breaks the molecular bonds in the gases. And the pure carbon adheres to the diamond seed and slowly builds up into a crystal atom by atom, layer by layer CVD.
High temperature. HPHT method replicates the natural process of diamond formation under the earth’s crust. Like a giant pressure cooker the machines used can build up to the pressure of almost 60,000 atmospheres. And to the temperature of 4,500 degrees Fahrenheit. The growth cell contains all the elements needed to grow a diamond, including a seed, highly refined graphite, and a catalyst mixture consisting of metals and powders, the entire HPHT growing process.
Requires an incredibly controlled environment to produce a gem quality diamond. Any shift or change during growth can cause the diamond to stop growing or can create inclusions that result in unusable diamonds. Every diamond must complete the entire growth cycle. Before the machine can be opened, it’s only after the HPHT Chamber is open that we can see the finished rough diamond and its color, clarity and size.
Just a little ways back, you said you identified 10 different. Industries that could be targets for lab grown diamond. I went on the website and, and took a glance at them.
I understand that one of the founding member companies of LGD intech is a company named Plasma Mobility, and they’re based in Austin, Texas. Bob Banet is the CAO and Bill Hobert is the CTO, and they are two of the leading diamond growing. Scientists in the whole world, and we’ve got a little clip here of Bob and Bill talking about how they see some of the promising applications, especially for consumer applications in the near term.
So let’s see what they have to say.
I’m, uh, bill Hover, I’m the, uh, president and CTO of Plasma Ability, Bob Bassett. I’m the CEO of Class Mobility. PLAs Mobility is a grower of, uh, high quality CBD Diamond. All our diamond production is in Austin, [00:12:00] Texas, and all our equipment is manufactured in Austin, Texas.
You know, everything from heat spraying applications to actual use. As diamond for a device within, um, the semiconductor space, there’s some very interesting applications in the medical space. Again, diamond is very mild edible, so it can be implanted within the body. Diamond, as you know, has a number of unique properties, some of which are well known.
Liz:
So wasn’t that great. They, you know, these two guys started in the semiconductor industry. And so they saw early on the importance that Diamond could play. So when they started designing and building their growing chambers, they really did it knowing future applications. Not a lot of growers come from that type of background.
And grow for tech grade diamonds. It’s not easy to do and it requires some of these growers to work on their chambers, but it can be done. And I think we have a few slides to show you, which will help explain it.
Alfred:
Part of the picture I’m getting is, okay, so we know how to grow these diamonds for, you know, this lab grown diamond for all kinds of great high tech applications, but did the temp cup tech companies.
Who are gonna be using them? Do, do they know about this? Do they understand the availability, the technological advances that they offer?
Liz:
I mean, when you talk to tech companies, they’re, they’re engineers and scientists. Again, they kind of know the basics.
Some of them say. Um, oh yeah, we heard about that 15 year.
In fact, I was at a trade show and one of the scientists said, yeah, I heard about that 15 years ago. And, uh, we never touched it. It was, you know, not really reliable and way, it cost way too much. I. And I said, well, it’s not like that anymore. The reason it’s not like that is because growing for the Gem industry took off.
There’s now a, you know, huge market for [00:16:00] grown diamond lab, grown diamond for, for jewelry. So that really propelled the entire industry forward and the ability to grow for tech. They’re pretty. Wide-eyed. In fact, they often say, and I had this exact conversation with someone at, um, at another trade show.
They said, oh, you know, I just got engaged and I bought my wife a lab grown diamond engagement ring, and she loves it. I said, perfect. Now imagine taking that diamond, manipulating it, slicing it, polishing it, growing it bigger, growing it thinner, whatever you need. And putting it into your tech applications.
And he said, well, you know, 15 years ago when someone approached us on this, we just thought, you know, forget it. And then the cost was way out of bounds and we need volume. So I said, okay. Okay. So I’m standing there [00:17:00] at, at this show and I have a couple of growers with me and I said, well, tell me, tell me what your needs are today.
And he said, okay, well, you know, we’re, we’re gonna need this price range. It was much lower than Gem. So both of my growers who have been in the GEM industry are little taken back. I said, okay, that’s all right. What about the volume? And he says, oh, well, I’m gonna need, you know, I don’t know. And he had, he had a guy with him, a consultant with him, and he goes, well.
I’m probably gonna need about 4 million units. So now my two growers, you know, their eyes are big and they’re going, oh, that’s pretty interesting. And then the, the consultant goes, oh, wait a minute. Sorry. Sorry. He misspoke. I, I, I, I don’t think he said that right. I. I’m thinking, well, what does that mean? And he goes, they order per quarter, so he needs 4 million units per quarter.
So now both of my growers wanna pass that on the floor. But, you know, that’s the, the disparity between that maybe what the use can be and what the awareness or understanding is. This is another reason why we started this, this consortium of everyone in the supply chain, we’re trying to bring them in, educate each other, help push evolvement of this product forward, and build not just the ecosystem, but a supply chain.
Alfred:
if we learned anything from smartphones, a few billion units a year does do a fair amount of jacking up a, a, a new industry and, and bringing prices down.
So definitely volume can, can drive all that. But that makes me think about one of the [00:19:00] really hot topics. It’s, you mentioned it. In passing a couple times, and that’s quantum computing. Um, seems to be evolving extremely quickly. I mean, just like a year, a couple years ago, it seems we had two qubits was a, was a big deal.
And now, you know, we’ve got bigger systems doing all kinds of stuff. I, I have to confess that I described myself as a Newtonian creature stuck in a Einsteinian universe. So I’m, I have trouble wrapping my head around some of the quantum stuff, but, but I do understand a little bit about. Yeah, how Diamond might be able to, to play a role in that, especially with the, the, the NV technology.
We have a clip from one of the world’s leading quantum scientists, mark Hilson, and he talks about how he uses Lab grown diamond in his work.
“My name’s Bar Hilson. I’m a quantum research scientist, so we, we sort of have a unique expertise in identifying the, you know, materials, the protocols, the technologies that will make it possible to.
Distribute quantum information, overlying distances beyond. One of the avenues we’re exploring is via diamond. I think perhaps the fundamental challenge in quantum networking is finding the righted boost material emitter pair that has properties that make it viable for real world deployment. So, uh, the sort of core element of a quantum network is a quantum repeater, and the core element of that is a quantum memory.
And so really the function of this memory is to basically catch information that’s propagating on light, store it on the memory, do some simple processing, and essentially enable it to be propagated further. So for a memory to serve this purpose, it needs to really effectively interface with light. We’re talking about single photons, single bits of light, and needs to be able to capture the information that’s stored on that light.
And save it for an extended period of time. And you know, this probably sounds like a complicated endeavor and to some the way, in some ways it is. [00:21:00] And so people have spent 20 plus years looking for the right quantum marry, and the search is still ongoing. I want to be very clear, but one of the, the very promising candidates are quantum memories in Diamond.
So really what we’re looking at here are these sort of substitutional defects. You know, that the nitrogen vacancy and silicon vacancy, these are things that I guess a lot of. Sirius Diamond people are already familiar with in some capacity. Uh, but it’s basically an atom plus a couple of vacancies that have combined.
And these, uh, emitters have really cool properties. They have long memory types and they interface really effectively with light. And so, you know, those are the two main requirements for good memory for quantum networking. But Diamond also has a lot of other nice properties, right? It’s, it’s not sort of standard CMOs material, but it is.
And it’s really those properties together that make diamond very interesting. Its strengths are, it naturally hosts good memories. And you can shape it into photonic and electronic devices very naturally. Using already existing tools.”
Alfred:
This is a lot of really wonderful information about Rone Diamond, but are most of your members in LGT in tech? Are they mostly on the grower side? Who’s in your membership?
Liz:
Yes. Most of them are growers. So at least probably 60% are growers, 60, 70%. The rest are, you know, they, they just come from different supply chain in this ecosystem we’re building.
So, um, we have, we have grower members, we also have post growth treatment companies. So what does that mean? Well, that little diamond I showed you doesn’t come out of a chamber looking like that. It has to be sliced, it has to be treated, it has to be polished. So these post growth treatments are important.
Um, plus those companies are now taking room diamond and, and embedding them or, or adding them to other components to help enhance. The, the component. So in the supply chain, it’s, it’s another material that has to be embedded before you get to the final piece. Uh, the final, you know, component or sub-component part.
We also have equipment [00:24:00] manufacturers. I. Very, very important. Not just for growing, but for all this post growth treatment that has to happen. Uh, we have scientists and engineers, we have press. We have other just interested groups including, um, investment groups. I. Who want to be a part of the success of some of these companies, which is very exciting also.
Um, and really like any, you know, good consortium trying to build an ecosystem, we have a lot of different, uh, types of companies and in, and individuals, uh, who’ve joined for their own. Interest and they really like our newsletter just to keep them, you know, thinking about diamond, keeping that on the forefront as a sub-component part.
Um, in fact, we have over 7,000 people signed up and receiving our newsletter, which is, you know. Pretty impressive.
for just a year old group. So how does membership work? How do you become a member of LGD in tech?
Liz:
Well, first of all, there, there’s a lot of steps that, that in this supply chain diamonds go through.
So there, there’s, there’s a lot of companies that are gonna touch or, or work with Diamond and all of those areas, including cutting and polishing, metrology, testing, setting standards, all of those. Groups are a part of us. So the consortium itself really is, is looking for and welcoming anyone who feels like that they’re in this, that they should be a part of the ecosystem in our membership.
We have a couple of different plans. So first is a diamond grower. If you’re a diamond grower, you can join under that banner and we, and that’s really the backbone, isn’t it? Because we don’t have the product then none of us matter. So you can be a diamond grower, you can be a grown diamond service provider.
So this is at the end, uh, you know, the companies are actually going to. Use Diamond. So these are, you know, semiconductor companies, they’re medical device company, you know, they’re, they’re really the end user of Diamond. They can be members. And then we also have community membership. I. And community membership means it’s just for people who are interested in this product, who wanna monitor it, who wanna probably get involved, but they start as a community member and then they, you know, move, move to another.
I. Um, another section that probably fits their, their needs better. And, [00:27:00] and by the way, a lot of these, not a lot, some of these members are gonna be with us at Semicon West in Phoenix in October. Uh, we have a pavilion booth number, uh, 1851. Um, so we welcome anyone to come by and meet us at the booth, and you can go to our website.
Sign up for these different membership packages. Um, so it’s lgd in tech.org, L-G-D-N-I-N tech.org and sign up as as a member, we welcome it.
Just a quick question, because of lot over my years in technology, I run into a lot of grad students and, and, and even undergrads who are interested in technology and.
Liz:
In the community membership, we have a lot of press. People are there. We have a lot of students, we have a lot of other trade [00:28:00] associations. I.
You know, people join as community members.
Um, they have access to us. They have full access to our website. They’re on our mailing list. They get our newsletters. So yes, we welcome basically, again because we’re building this community, we’re building this ecosystem. We want everybody in possible ecosystem to be a member at some level in our group.
Wow, that is terrific. I’ve learned a lot about. Slab grown diamond today, and thank you, Liz, for, for taking out on this wonderful tour of the, this incredible technology. Thank you and congratulations of course on your first anniversary for LGD and Tech.
Liz:
I tell you, I can’t, I mean, frankly, it’s gone by pretty fast one year.
It’s already gone by and we’ve, we’ve been to, we’ve attended or exhibited in five different trade shows already. Again, different. The battery show, the ev show, the, you know, different, different shows [00:29:00] because we’re really addressing and enhancing the availability of a product that can be used in all of them.
Alfred:
Well, I’m fascinated. I can’t, can’t wait to learn more. And speaking about learning more. Going forward. This LGD and Tech Insights podcast series is ongoing and it’s going to be your source for the latest, best information on the use of grown diamond throughout the whole technology world and why Diamond is so vital to improve the component and sub component parts.
