G. Meaden et al., LASER CUTTING OF DIAMOND FIBERS AND DIAMOND FIBRE TITANIUM METAL-MATRIX COMPOSITES/, DIAMOND AND RELATED MATERIALS, 5(6-8), 1996, pp. 825-828
Continuous diamond fibres were produced by chemical vapour deposition
of diamond onto tungsten wire. The fibres were embedded in Ti-6Al-4V a
lloy to produce a diamond fibre reinforced composite. The diamond fibr
e reinforced titanium alloy composite contained a high volume fraction
of fibres uniformly spaced at a distance of about 50-100 mu m. Both t
he fibres and the composite material were extremely difficult to cut w
ithout damage by conventional mechanical methods. The use of an Nd-YAC
laser to cut these materials is described.