Superhard structure or body comprising a body of polycrystalline diamond containing material

A free standing PCD body comprising a PCD material formed of combination of intergrown diamond grains forming a diamond network and an interpenetrating metallic network, the PCD body not being attached to a second body or substrate formed of a different material during any stage of its manufacture, wherein:

• a) the diamond network is formed of diamond grains having a plurality of grain sizes, the diamond network comprising a grain size distribution having an average diamond grain size, wherein the largest component of the diamond grain size distribution is no greater than three times the average diamond grain size;
• and
• b) the PCD material forming the free standing PCD body is homogeneous, the PCD body being spatially constant and invariant with respect to diamond network to metallic network volume ratio, wherein the homogeneity is measured at a scale greater than ten times the average grain size and spans the dimension of the PCD body, the PCD material being macroscopically residual stress free at said scale.