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Hey! how are you guys doing?
Hope you've having an amazing day!
So, imagine...you've purchased a newly $750 smartphone, and you are using it so well and one day out of nowhere you just drop your phone onto some heavy traffic road and few trucks or cars pass through it, you'll definitely feel bad because it's been few days only and you've got your phone crashed. So what you'll do now? maybe go to the mobile repair shop and get it fixed, or if you've got an overflowing bank account you will be buying a new phone (that's true! :D). So now I think you should consider getting a screen protector or a strengthened glass on it. Wait...what is a strengthened glass?? How will it'll protect my screen from not damaging? I'll answer all this questions below.
Basically, these highly strengthened glass are actually "Alkali-Aluminosilicate" sheets which are usually used to cover portable electronic devices like mobiles, laptops etc. And these glasses are made in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, US, Asan, Korea, and Taiwan.
There is this multi-national technology company, Corning Inc. which was a glass maker back then in 168 years ago, and as years passed on the company made some major changes in the industry and specially during 2006-2007 when Steve Jobs started working with the company in-order to bring the first ever iPhone. Yes guys the first iPhone had a strengthened glass on it and it was built by this company. The strengthened glass which this company makes is branded and developed as Gorilla Glass.
Okay, How does the glass gains it strength? well the glass sheets are actually dipped into a solution of potassium and salt where these glass sheets chemically exchange the ions making them really very strong. let's look at a detailed process for this glass
The glass is chemically strengthened by a surface finishing process. Glass is submersed in a bath containing a potassium(typically potassium nitrate) at 300 °C (572 °F). This causes sodium ions in the glass surface to be replaced by potassium ions from the bath solution.
These potassium ions are larger than the sodium ions and therefore wedge into the gaps left by the smaller sodium ions when they migrate to the potassium nitrate solution. This replacement of ions causes the surface of the glass to be in a state of compression and the core in compensating tension. The surface compression of chemically strengthened glass may reach up to 690 MPa.
The strengthening mechanism depends on the fact that the compressive strength of glass is significantly higher than its tensile strength. With both surfaces of the glass already in compression, it takes a certain amount of bending before one of the surfaces can even go into tension. More bending is required to reach the tensile strength. The other surface simply experiences more and more compressive stress. But since the compressive strength is so much larger, no compressive failure is experienced. There also exists a more advanced two-stage process for making chemically strengthened glass, in which the glass article is first immersed in a sodium nitrate bath at 450°C (842°F), which enriches the surface with sodium ions. This leaves more sodium ions on the glass for the immersion in potassium nitrate to replace with potassium ions. In this way, the use of a sodium nitrate bath increases the potential for surface compression in the finished glass.
Yup, that's how these "highly strengthened glasses" are made and currently, Gorilla Glass has it's 6th gen of their strong glasses and as of 2018, roughly almost 6.5 billion devices come with these highly protective glass which saves your screen from those random drops. And if you are buying a new device make sure you get it with a screen protector of this sort, or you'll end up increasing your monthly bills for this..little..thing.
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