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Want to know the secret behind Samsung and Huawei’s foldable smartphones? It uses a plastic screen which explains how the display is as flexible as it is. This is versus the use of glass which is commonly found on pretty much all our smartphones these days. Unfortunately, in turn, it also creates a problem with the overall durability of the phone.
Thankfully that seems to be a problem that Corning is looking to solve as during an interview with WIRED, the company has revealed that they are working on bendable glass solution for future smartphone displays.
In an explanation by John Mauro, a professor of materials science and engineering at Penn State University who had also previously worked at Corning:
“With the polymer, the molecules can rearrange themselves more easily in response to stress, whereas the glass has a more rigid structure, so the response of the glass is going to be more elastic. The structure of the glass will be able to recover after the deformations.”
This means that in theory if one were to use a bendable glass display, it should be able to avoid some of the pitfalls involved in current foldable screens, which are creases that could appear over time with the repeated folding and unfolding of the screen. Corning is now working on a bendable glass that measures 0.1mm thin that is also capable of bending at a 0.5mm radius.
Corning is no stranger to bendable glass as they had previously worked on the Willow glass, but it seems that the process used to make the Willow glass makes it unsuitable for phones.
They are, however, expected to combine their experience with the Willow glass and their Gorilla Glass to come up with a solution that could potentially find its way into our foldable smartphones in the future.
Source: WIRED
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