Dislocation engineering in single crystal synthetic diamond material

A single crystal CVD synthetic diamond layer comprising a non-parallel dislocation array, wherein the non-parallel dislocation array comprises a plurality of dislocations forming an array of inter-crossing dislocations, as viewed in an X-ray topographic cross-sectional view or under luminescent conditions, wherein the layer of single crystal CVD synthetic diamond has a thickness equal to or greater than 1 μm, wherein the non-parallel dislocation array extends over a volume forming at least 30% of a total volume of the single crystal CVD synthetic diamond layer, and wherein a direction in which a dislocation propagates is measured in terms of an average direction over at least 30% of a total length of the dislocation.