Gorilla Glass

Gorilla Glass is the registered trademark for an alkali-aluminosilicate sheet toughened glass manufactured by U.S. glassmaker Corning Inc. Engineered for a combination of thinness, lightness, and damage-resistance, it is used primarily as the cover glass for portable electronic devices including mobile phones, portable media players, laptop computer displays, and some television screens.[1] It is manufactured through immersion in a molten alkaline salt bath using ion exchange to produce compressive residual stress at the surface. This prevents cracks from propagating – for a crack to start, it will first have to overcome this compressive stress.[2]

History.

Corning experimented with chemically strengthened glass in 1960, as part of a "Project Muscle" initiative. Within a few years it had developed a "muscled glass"[3] it named "Chemcor" glass. The product was used until the early 1990s in various commercial and industrial applications, including automotive, aviation and pharmaceutical uses,[3] with particular use in approximately one hundred 1968 Dodge Dart and Plymouth Barracuda racing cars, where minimizing the vehicle's weight is essential.[4] Experimentation was revived in 2005, investigating whether the glass could be made thin enough for use in consumer electronics, and was brought into commercial use when Apple asked Corning for a toughened glass that would eventually go into the iPhone.