Diamond Fibres, Wires and Hollow Tubes

thick diamond wire A thick diamond coating on a large diameter tungsten wire core.
thin wire Thick diamond coating on a small diameter tungsten wire core.
wire cross section A cross-section through the diamond-coated W wire showing the growth marks.
diamond tube A hollow diamond tube made by etching out the W core using an acid.
tube helix A hollow diamond tube made by coating a tightly coiled tungsten wire helix.
Hollow tube Lower magnification SEM of the hollow tube.
diamond wire and hypodermic needle To give you an idea of the scale of these diamond-coated wires, this shows a diamond tube entering a very small hypodermic needle.
SiC fibre A diamond-coated SiC fibre (Textron). The inner core is Carbon fibre, coated in 40 μm of SiC, with a 10 μm diamond coating on top of that.
nextel fibre A diamond-coated oval Nextel fibre (alumina-based). Note that this fibre is only 10 μm in diameter.
Tyranno fibre Two diamond-coated Tyranno (Si-C-O-based) fibres. The fibres are only about 10 μm in diameter, but have been coated with 35 μm of diamond. These fibres are now effectively diamond fibres, since the contribution to the composite properties by the small volume fraction of the core is insignificant.
Tyranno fibre end Close up of the end of one of these Tyranno fibres. The volume fraction of diamond is approximately 97%.