Swiss team carves miniscule watch component from synthetic diamond

Diamond has a number of favourable properties but cutting it into complex shapes with micrometre precision remains very challenging.

Now, a process developed by a team led by Niels Quack, a Swiss National Science Foundation Professor at EPFL in Lausanne, makes it possible to carve a micromechanical watch system - a 3mm diameter escapement wheel and anchor - out of synthetic single-crystal diamond.

The Lausanne team is said to have refined reactive ion etching, a technique widely used in the computer chip industry, to carve synthetic diamond into three-dimensional shapes 0.15mm thick.

"We're getting close to watch industry standard thickness, which is about 0.2mm,” said Quack. "Our technique is interesting to industry, and we are in discussions with a Swiss watch company. We believe that diamond offers reduced friction, which should increase the power reserve. That's how long it takes until the watch has to be rewound. But it's still a hypothesis that needs to be tested."