Biocompatible Sintered Diamond Jewelry

Abstract

An article of jewelry for wearing on the body may comprise a sintered polycrystalline diamond compact with substantially no metal catalyst. As many of the metal catalysts commonly used in the art are known to cause skin irritation, such a sintered compact with substantially no metal catalyst may be more biocompatible than previously known. A method for forming such a biocompatible sintered polycrystalline diamond compact comprises mixing diamond powder and metal catalyst powder into a mixture and sintering the mixture under elevated temperature and pressure conditions to form a sintered compact. The sintered compact may then be leached in an acid or other solution to substantially remove the metal catalyst from the sintered compact.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.