WORDLTEMPUS – 4 November 2010
Elizabeth Lilly Doerr
In 2006, Ulysse Nardin's Rolf Schnyder sat down with the founder of Mimotec, Hubert Lorenz. The two created a joint venture that has changed the face of the watch industry forever: Sigatec utilizes the combined force of UV LIGA production and DRIE-worked silicon to created light, sturdy, corrosion-resistant, and non-magnetic components and made them widely available to the entire watch industry. Currently, Sigatec has 32 clients using this technology; Mimotec can boast about a hundred. Undeniably, these two companies have heralded the watchmaking of the future.
Peter Gluche, founder and director of GfD, explains the advantages of diamond-coated silicon at the Sigatec/Mimotec facility in Sion. © Worldtempus/Elizabeth Lilly Doerr
Before this ever happened, Ulysse Nardin had already been in contact with Germany's GfD institute since 2002. This start-up was specialized in “growing” synthetic diamond using a vapor process to plant the “seeds.” In 2005, the fruit of this labor was launched: the Freak Diamond Heart, boasting escape wheels of the Dual Direct escapement in pure synthetic diamond.
Growing diamonds on a silicon substrate however turned out to be a less costly venture, so Ulysse Nardin and GfD began experimenting with this in 2004: DCS (Diamond Coated Silicon) was born. The result of this was exhibited in 2007's Freak DiamonSil.
Highest mechanical strength
Yesterday at the facility in Sion, Ulysse Nardin introduced its next joint venture, this time in conjunction with GfD. The new venture has been christened Diamaze Microtechnology. “This represents a new chapter in the history of haute horlogerie,” Schnyder said. Peter Gluche, founder and director of GfD, was also on hand to explain the advantages of diamond in conjunction with silicon. “There is no more extreme material than diamond,” he explained. “It is the most stable of all materials too.” Gluche went on to explain that while diamond has the highest mechanical strength of all materials –ten times harder than the next hardest material on the Mohs scale – it remains lightweight, chemically inert (meaning it won't corrode), non-magnetic, and will not exhibit wear and tear. While silicon also boasts many of these characteristics, it is also brittle. Gluche demonstrated that the diamond applied to a silicon substrate remains flexible – providing yet another advantage over silicon on its own.
After fifteen years of experimentation and research the process is stabilized and can now be industrialized thanks to Sigatec. Ten million Swiss francs invested into the Sigatec facility by GfD (and an undisclosed sum provided by Ulysse Nardin) have resulted for the most part in an innovative three-chamber machine that basically “toasts” the diamond vapor coating the silicon and growing the crystals. Using enormous amounts of energy, five microns of diamond coating can be grown in a 24-hour period. The result looks much like a piece of foil when it is separated from the silicon substrate. Welcome to the future.
