Being largely transparent and the hardest known material, diamond presents unique difficulties for drilling and shaping.
The picture above shows part of a diamond specimen support for use in a Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) comprising a dense array of holes on a small pitch forming a mesh. The sample has been ion Beam Milled to produce rounded edges to the holes. Note the boundaries of the crystal grains, which appear as bright lines.
A range of film thicknesses, 10µm to 1.5mm, have been machined, with a variety of features from round holes to complex cut patterns. In addition, features can be machined with very low taper and with very low levels of graphite formation. We can also process natural diamond.