Gorilla Glass

Gorilla Glass

Gorilla Glass is a brand of specialized toughened glass developed and manufactured byCorning, now in its fourth generation, designed to be thin, light and damage-resistant. This type of glass is not unique to Corning; similar glasses include Asahi Glass Co. Dragontrail andSchott AG Xensation.

The alkali-aluminosilicate sheet glass is used primarily as cover glass for portable electronic devices, including mobile phones, portable media players, portable computer displays, and some television screens. It is manufactured in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, USA, in Asan, Korea, and in Taiwan.

The glass gains its surface strength, ability to contain flaws, and crack-resistance by being immersed in a hot potassium salt ion-exchange bath.

A picture from Google images

Corning further developed the material for a variety of smartphones and other consumer electronics devices for a range of companies.

The manufacturer markets the material's primary properties as its high scratch-resistance (protective coating) and its hardness (with a Vickers hardness test rating of 622 to 701), which allows the glass to be thin without fragility. It can be recycled.

By 2010 the glass had been used in approximately 20 percent of mobile handsets worldwide, about 200 million units. The second generation, called "Gorilla Glass 2", was introduced in 2012. On October 24, 2012, Corning announced that over one billion mobile devices used Gorilla Glass. Gorilla Glass 2 is 20 percent thinner than the original Gorilla Glass.

Gorilla Glass 3 was introduced at CES 2013. According to Corning, Gorilla Glass 3 is up to three times more scratch-resistant than the previous version, with enhanced ability to resist deep scratches that typically weaken glass. The promotional material for Gorilla Glass 3 claims that it is 40% more scratch-resistant, in addition to being more flexible.The design of Gorilla Glass 3 was Corning's first use of atomic-scale modeling before the material was melted in laboratories, with the prediction of the optimal composition attained through the application of rigidity theory.

When Gorilla Glass 3 was announced Corning indicated that areas for future improvements included reducing reflectivity and susceptibility to fingerprint smudges, and changing the surface treatments and the way it is finished.

Antimicrobial Gorilla Glass with ionic silver, which is antibacterial, incorporated into its surface was demonstrated in early 2014. Gorilla Glass 4, with better damage resistance and capable of being made thinner for the same performance than its predecessor, was announced at the end of the year.

Gorilla glass has begun being used automobiles. Ford Motor Company announced it will be using the material for the front and rear windshields on its Ford GT sports car beginning in 2016.