Method of fabricating plates of super-hard material using a collimated cutting beam

Abstract

A method of fabricating plates of super-hard material and cutting techniques suitable for such a method. A method of fabricating a plate (14) of super-hard material, the method comprising: •providing a substrate (4) have a lateral dimension of at least 40 mm; •growing a layer of super-hard material on the substrate (4) using a chemical vapor deposition process; and •slicing one or more plates (14) of super-hard material from the substrate using a collimated cutting beam (8), the or each plate of super-hard material (14) having a lateral dimension of at least 40 mm, wherein the collimated cutting beam (8) is collimated with a half angle divergence of no more than 5 degrees.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.