Explained: What Is Corning’s Gorilla Glass?

You must have heard of Corning’s Gorilla Glass. Mostly, you have heard it in the case of smartphones when you hear that certain smartphone features a Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 or Glass 4. We all know that it is used in the smartphones but, the question is what exactly is Corning Gorilla Glass?

What Is Corning’s Gorilla Glass

Gorilla Glass is basically a product of the company Corning and the term “Gorilla Glass” is a registered trademark of the company. It is a glass which is thin in size, light in weight and scratch resistant. It is called “Gorilla Glass” as the word Gorilla signifies the strength and the glass is mostly used to protect the display of a phone.

Explained: What Is Corning's Gorilla Glass

When it is said that the glass is Corning’s Gorilla Glass 4, it means that the glass is in its fourth generation. The higher the generation, stronger and better would be the glass. It is widely used in smartphones these days and it is even used on both side of the phone to give a premium look and sturdiness to the device.

It is made up of alkali – aluminosilicate mixture and is also used to protect computer displays, television screens and portable media players. The reason behind such surface strength in a glass is that it is immersed in a hot potassium salt ion exchange bath before going into actual usage.

The very first generation of Gorilla Glass was used to protect the display of iPhone in the year 2007. It came into existence when Apple asked Corning to make a thin yet tough glass for iPhone. The second generation made its debut in 2012 and was almost 20% thinner than the first generation. The third version of the Glass was launched in the year 2013 at CES. The company claimed that Gorilla Glass 3 is three times more scratch resistant than the previous version and is more flexible.

How it is Made?

The ion exchange method is used to make it tough. The material used to make the glass is immersed in a molten alkaline potassium salt at a temperature of 400° C. During this process, the smaller sodium ions are replaced by larger potassium ions present in the salt bath. These larger ions tend to occupy more space and thus results in creating a surface layer of high strength which makes the glass crack and scratch resistant.

Corning is not limited to making Gorilla Glass only as the company recently announced the launch of Lotus Glass especially for OLED and LCD screens. In most simple terms, Gorilla Glass is just a cover which protects the external display but, Lotus Glass is designed in such a way that it can protect the screen internally by mixing with liquid crystals of the display. Gorilla Glass is gaining a lot of popularity and almost each and every phone features a Corning’s Gorilla Glass in its display. There are many competitors for Gorilla Glass like Sapphire Glass and Dragon trail. However, Corning’s Gorilla Glass is considered as the best protection for a display and is now used in close to 70% of the phones. So, now if anyone asks you what is Corning’s Gorilla Glass, you can explain them all this.

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