Biden officials make last-ditch push for Greenland mining investment
Greenland contains large deposits of most of the minerals considered critical by the US Geological Survey.
Venturebeat reports De Beers has set up investment offices in Silicon Valley to find and fund synthetic diamond startups through the investment arm of a subsidiary Element Six.
Element Six Ventures has already funded a number of startups that use synthetic diamonds in the semiconductor industry and other manufacturing processes. Its new office will be in a Santa Clara, Calif. location that will also house a new production site.
Synthetic diamond is a surprisingly mature business – the first synthesis of synthetic diamond was achieved by a high pressure, high temperature process in 1953 and 7 years later these processes were commercialized and volume manufacturing started in South Africa in 1960.
VentureBeat quotes Susie Wheeler, managing director of Element Six Ventures Group: “Locating the Ventures’ office in Silicon Valley allows us to connect with new partners who, like us, want to develop these emerging technology investments.”
Element six already has manufacturing facilities in Ireland, China, Germany, Sweden, South Africa and the UK. On its website Element Six, a 50-year old company HQ’ed in Luxembourg, list the characteristics of synthetic diamond supermaterials, a term which includes manufactured synthetic diamond and other supermaterials such as cubic boron nitride (CBN), tungsten carbide and silicon cemented diamond:
– The broadest electromagnetic transmission spectrum of any material
– A wide electronic band gap (it carries very low current even under high voltages)
– The ability to combine/dope with boron and take on a similar electrical conductivity to metal
– The highest known thermal conductivity
– The highest known resistance to thermal shock
– Low thermal expansion
– Low dielectric constant and loss
– High electrical carrier mobility
– A very low coefficient of friction
– Chemical and biochemical inertness
– Excellent electrical insulator properties
In July MINING.com reported diamonds have the potential to act as building blocks for quantum computing. In an article published in Nature Physics in June, a group of researchers found that the nitrogen vacancy centre in a diamond can be used for quantum memory. Quantum computers uses quantum mechanics to perform operations much faster than traditional computers, which are based on transitors.
Computers are essentially a large collection of coordinated bits that are either in the on or off state. A quantum computer is composed of quantum bits or qubits, which can have many more states, thus exponentially increasing the computer’s power. But finding an effective medium for quantum computing has been ellusive, and researchers found that diamonds may be one of the answers.
Quatum computing, as whole, is still in the experimental phase; however, Lockheed Martin is buying the world’s first commmercial quanutm computing system from D-Wave Systems.
Image of Syngrit courtesy of Element Six. The company supplies among others synthetic and natural diamond grits for use in the manufacture of a variety of tools for the stone, construction and mining industries.
