Fracture and erosion of CVD diamond

The fracture and erosion behaviour of free-standing specimens of CVD diamon d is investigated in this paper. Surface erosion through high velocity impa ct with quartz particles has been studied and measured, and a mechanism for the process is discussed. The effect of microstructure and grain size is c onsidered, and anisotropy in the observed fracture is related to the differ ent crystalgraphic orientation of specimens. Importance is placed on the re lative size of impinging particle to the grain size, since the response of the surface to damage can range from that observed in single crystal diamon d to that expected of a bulk polycrystal. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. Al l rights reserved.