Great Lakes Crystal Technologies Advances Diamond Materials Platform for Next-Generation Electronics Applications

EAST LANSING, Michigan — Jul 21 2026 — Great Lakes Crystal Technologies (GLCT), a Michigan State University (MSU)-founded materials company, is scaling production of semiconductor-grade diamond substrates, plates, and wafers designed to solve one of the biggest bottlenecks in modern electronics: heat.

As AI hardware, high-power systems, and quantum technologies push silicon and even silicon carbide toward their physical limits, diamond is emerging as the material best positioned to take over where those materials fall short. Diamond conducts heat far more efficiently than silicon, tolerates extreme temperatures, resists radiation, and holds up under intense electrical stress — properties that make it a strong fit for high-power electronics, extreme-environment systems, and next-generation quantum sensors.

“The limits we’re hitting in electronics are not just about software or computing power anymore — they’re about materials,” said Jonathan Charak, CEO of GLCT. “Diamond offers a path forward because it manages heat better and performs where traditional materials start to break down.”

Solving Diamond’s Manufacturing Challenge

Diamond’s electronic potential has been well understood for years. What has held it back is manufacturing: producing diamond at the size, purity, crystal quality, and consistency that advanced devices require has historically been difficult and costly.

“The challenge has never been whether diamond has the right properties,” Charak said. “The challenge is producing it in the right form, at the right quality, and in a way that fits real applications.”

GLCT addresses that challenge with custom-built chemical vapor deposition (CVD) reactors and proprietary process controls, enabling the company to produce single-crystal, semiconductor-grade diamond that is uniform, scalable, and tailored to specific device requirements.

Built on Decades of MSU Research

GLCT’s core technology originated in the MSU lab of Co-Founder Dr. Timothy Grotjohn, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who has spent more than 35 years researching diamond growth, reactor design, and device development. That research became the scientific foundation for a company built to bring diamond materials from the lab into commercial-scale electronics manufacturing.

“All of the core intellectual property was spun out of Michigan State,” Charak said. “Dr. Tim Grotjohn has been working on diamond for decades, and that long foundation of research is a big part of why we believe we can do this better than anyone else.”

Founded in 2019, GLCT grew with support from the MSU Innovation Center and the MSU Research Foundation, which helped protect the underlying intellectual property, identify commercialization pathways, and connect the company with early investment, incubator lab space, and mentorship. Today, GLCT is the only 100% U.S.-based manufacturer of device-ready diamond material of its kind, designing and building its CVD reactors entirely domestically.

Opening the Door to Quantum Sensing

Beyond thermal management, GLCT’s diamond platform is positioned for a newer frontier: quantum sensing. By engineering nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers — precise defects within the diamond crystal structure — GLCT’s material can be used to build sensors capable of detecting magnetic fields, temperature shifts, and pressure changes with extraordinary sensitivity.

“In diamond-based quantum sensing, the diamond itself becomes the sensor,” Charak said. “If you grow it with the right intentional defects, it can respond very sensitively to magnetic fields, which opens the door to entirely new kinds of measurement and navigation technologies.”

Potential applications span multiple industries:

• Healthcare: less invasive diagnostics and higher-resolution imaging of signals from the brain, heart, and muscles
• Defense and aerospace: navigation support in GPS-denied environments
• Industrial and energy: improved monitoring, inspection, and precision measurement in demanding conditions

Growing National Recognition

In January 2025, GLCT received a $2.7 million award from National Security Innovation Capital to advance manufacturing readiness for large-area, single-crystal diamond substrates supporting quantum sensing, thermal management in microchip packaging, and advanced electronics. The award adds to more than $20 million in federal investment the company has secured to date, reflecting growing recognition of diamond as a strategically important enabling technology for computing, energy, aerospace, defense, and sensing applications.

“These aren’t just widgets,” Charak said. “These are impactful technologies that can improve national security and help address real needs in the world, which is part of what makes this work so exciting.”