HOW TO MAKE GORILLA GLASS? It may seem that we are at the beginning of the era of gadgets. Several decades ago, personal computers were not portable, and mobile phones were rare luxuries. Today, a quick glance at an electronics store tells you everything you need to know. Gadgets - our toys and our toys is very portable.
Electronics is also improving. CPU frequency has increased dramatically, following Moore's Law. The screen resolution is sharper, and it is brighter than ever. Some companies spend almost as much time on aesthetics, but on engineering. However, there is one improvement that you might not notice: the glass becomes stronger.
Production Company Corning developed a product that itself called Gorilla Glass . The company made this glass in accordance with our electronic lifestyle. While we carry with them computers, tablets, smart phones, MP3-players, we run the risk of damaging them in the process of everyday use. Glass from Corning Gorilla Glass resists scratches and has a shock-resistant qualities. Corning approach allows you to make incredibly thin glass, which means that its thickness will not interfere with the capacitive touch screens or add significant weight to the device.
What is the secret Corning? What's so special about Gorilla Glass, which distinguishes it from other types of glass? The answer contains the incredible temperatures, a special chute, robots and a molten salt bath. The final product is a thin piece of glass that can withstand very, very much.
Sand alloy
While you might think that the glass - an artificial material in nature, it is quite common. Certain stones and minerals are glass after exposure to high temperatures. This happens quite naturally flowing with lava flows and lightning strikes the ground.
People created the glass for millennia. Furnace capable of incredible heat, melted into a certain type of rock that we call the molten metal. At this stage, you can do whatever you want from the glass, including a tube to inflate it by blowing air into the mass. We call this technique glassmaker.
Commercial glass usually takes from three main sources. First - a sand which is chemically silica. This is the type of stuff that Corning uses in its production process. The other two types of material include limestone and sodium carbonate.
Corning takes silicon dioxide (SiO2) and combines it with other chemicals before you throw them into the glass. The result is aluminosilicate glass - it contains aluminum, silicon and oxygen. Lid also contains sodium ions, which will be needed in the next manufacturing step.
Corning pouring molten glass into a trough-shaped V, but does not stop when it is filled to the brim. The company continues to add molten glass until the glass begins to pour out from the edges of the trough. Automated Handling pull together the edges of the glass sheets from the gutter. Each sheet thickness somewhere half a millimeter.
If you use this glass for their electronic devices, it will be very, very clear. But it is not resistant to damage Gorilla Glass, it is - just aluminosilicate glass. In order to give Gorilla Glass ability to resist scratches and cracks, Corning lowers the sheets of glass in a small bath.
Ion exchange
The special trick in the process which creates Gorilla Glass, - a chemical process called ion exchange. Ion - a charged atom that is either acquired or lost an electron. Electrons - negatively charged subatomic particles. The total charge of the ion is negative, if it has an extra electron or positive if it lost an electron. Elements in its atomic form have neutral charge, since the number of electrons equal to the number of protons, positively charged.
What do ions have to do with the glass? Aluminosilicate glass from the first stage of the production process contains sodium ions. Corning glass sheets bathes in a bath with potassium ions. If you look at the periodic table of elements, you will see that sodium is slightly higher potassium. Dmitri Mendeleev, who created the periodic table, arranged the elements in order of atomic weight and grouped together elements that have similar characteristics. Sodium and potassium are alkali metals active group. They are extremely strongly react with other substances.
Sodium above in the periodic table than potassium, which means that less sodium atom, potassium atom. Oddly enough, it matters. If you take the sodium ions from the aluminosilicate glass and replace them with larger potassium ions, the glass sheet is under pressure.
Imagine that you have a network. Filament network is quite flexible, but stiff. And in every hole grid is a golf ball. Now imagine that you replace all these golf balls tennis balls. Roughly the same thing happens at the atomic level by ionic exchange.
How does it work? To replace sodium with potassium, you first need to break the ionic bonds, which have been established in sodium glass. That is why the potassium salt bath so hot - Corning argues that bath was heated to 400 degrees Celsius. At this temperature the energy (heat) disrupts ionic bonding of sodium aluminosilicate. But there is one low-level metal quality they can maintain ionic bonds at higher temperatures than light active metals. Potassium weighs more sodium - therefore 400 degrees Celsius enough to separate ions and potassium aluminosilicate.
After a nice hot bath in a bath of potassium aluminum silicate becomes compacted potassium ions. Pressure creates a protective layer of glass and gives him the power, which it is not ordinary glass. In environmental terms - Gorilla Glass is suitable for recycling.
Gorillas in the glass
Ion exchange process is not new, and the Gorilla Glass - not only chemically strengthened glass on the market. But Corning demonstrated the strength of his glass at events such as CES, where the company invites people to see how much pressure it takes to break a piece of her glass. Normal glass breaks pretty easily. Standard chemically strengthened glass will withstand more pressure, but also crack. Gorilla Glass is much more resistant to damage.
How Gorilla Glass falls into products? Corning is working with manufacturers and provides Gorilla Glass as part of the manufacturing process of the product. Ordinary consumer can not go out and buy a sheet Gorilla Glass, to install it on an existing device. In this sense, Corning is the original equipment manufacturer (OEM). The finished product will contain a list Corning, but the final product will have a mark on it to another company.
Corning does not disclose all of the products that use Gorilla Glass. But among the products on which the company says have TVs Sony BRAVIA, Samsung Tablets and Dell Streak. While smartphone manufacturers put Gorilla Glass, that their products are more resistant to wear and tear, TV manufacturers just want to make their products more durable.
To date, more and more smart phones acquire glass Gorilla Glass, and the scope of application of this glass is not limited to the sphere of smartphones.
