Engineers create transparent material with hardness comparable to tungsten metal

Study Finds ^ | March 10, 2025 | Staff

[Red Badger]

Economies of scale will kick in when it becomes mature..............

[Qwapisking]

even at $10/sq.inch it would be worth it for an unbreakable TV screen. not now so much but from ‘20 until recently and 7 big screen targets...i would have saved. President Donald J Trump saving Even TV’s. what CAN’T He do?

[mikelets456]

Or a windshield…

[Red Badger]

If the process can be scaled up, and I believe it can be, soon we will see unbreakable eyeglasses, smartphones, TVs, Computer monitors and yes even WINDOWS...............

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Sapphire has been the Holy Grail for phone screens for a long time. I remember when it was the "next big thing" in iPhones ten years ago...

Why Apple Failed to Make Sapphire iPhones

The delicate, monthlong process of growing sapphire accounts for why Apple’s sapphire supplier failed to deliver for the iPhone 6.

By Kevin Bullis
November 25, 2014
MIT Technology Review

In the year leading up to the release of the iPhone 6, Apple invested more than $1 billion in an effort to make sapphire one of the device’s big selling points. Making screens out of the nearly unscratchable material would have helped set the new phone apart from its competitors.

When Apple announced the iPhone 6 this September, however, it didn’t have a sapphire screen, only a regular glass one. And a month later, the small New Hampshire-based company chosen to supply Apple with enormous quantities of cheap sapphire, GT Advanced Technologies, declared bankruptcy.

Recent documents from GT’s bankruptcy proceedings, and conversations with people familiar with operations at Apple and GT, provide several clues as to what went wrong.

Sapphire must have seemed like a perfect material for a smartphone screen. It has long been used as a cover for luxury watches, and Apple has used it to cover the cameras and fingerprint sensors in some iPhones since October 2013. But making large pieces of sapphire—enough for a smartphone screen—would normally cost 10 times as much as using glass.

---

...and...

Today in Apple history: Apple’s sapphire dreams shatter

By Luke Dormehl
October 8, 2024
Cult of Mac

Apple says it is “surprised” after GT Advanced Technologies, the supplier previously rumored to make ultra-strong sapphire glass displays for the iPhone 6, says it will file for bankruptcy. The announcement appears to mark the end of the road for sapphire glass iPhone screens, a highly anticipated upgrade that promised to make devices more durable but never arrived.

Up until the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus release, sapphire glass screens remained one of the biggest rumored upgrades. Ahead of the devices’ unveiling, the prospect excited many people. YouTube videos purporting to show iPhone 6 sapphire displays resisting knife scrapes got people amped. One survey even showed that consumers’ most-anticipated iPhone 6 feature was a sapphire display.

To try and make this a reality, Apple signed a deal with GT Advanced Technologies in November 2013. The pact included a $578 million payment from Apple to speed up “the development of its next generation, large capacity ASF furnaces to deliver low cost, high volume manufacturing of sapphire material.”

This would take place at a plant in Mesa, Arizona. However, Apple never confirmed its interest in sapphire iPhone displays. Still, as the rumors grew stronger, GT’s stock price rose.

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After that huge investment a decade ago, the iPhone 16 uses sapphire only in the camera control button and the camera lenses.

[RightOnTheBorder]

The transparent aluminum from last week had transmittance around 70% which isn’t too far off from window glass.

[SoConPubbie]

Materials Science was the most boring, to me, class in my Engineering Education when I was in College.

However, I have to admit, looking at it through the lens of this article, It’s kind of sexy!

[rightwingcrazy]

“Engineers create transparent material with hardness comparable to tungsten metal”

“The mechanical properties showed some reduction compared to pure sapphire.”

Wait; what? That doesn’t seem like the best title for this article.

[Rifleman]

Sapphire is aluminum oxide, so...transparent aluminum!

[left that other site]

😆

[Ezekiel]

Boy, talk about timing. I've just been on this subject yesterday without knowing.

“Sapphire is such a high-value material because of its hardness and many other favorable properties,” explains lead researcher Chih-Hao Chang, an associate professor in the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering, in a statement. “But the same properties that make it attractive also make it difficult to manufacture at small scales.”

Yet somehow, a few thousand years ago, Moses was able to smash those tablets to bits and save 'em for a rainy day.

⛈️

Sapphire nanostructures!

In part (if people think the volume of my posts are voluminous enough...):

JERUSALEM

and the sanctuary in the centre of JerUSAlem,

and the holy place in the centre of the sanctuary

and the ark in the centre of the [S] holy place (cf. Orion's ... Belt in the center of the "S" path to the Moon and back), and Neil [ניל] in the middle of the center star Alnilam [אלנילם])

and the Foundation Stone before the holy place,

because from it the world was founded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_Stone#Jewish_significance

JERUALEM

S: Sierra (mountain range, "saw")

"I am operating astern propulsion."

Morse ("Moses"*) Code:

...

(ellipsis: something is missing; the "More" menu)

sapphire nanostructures:

Charity, the blue box

🟦

S is for Sapphire [ספיר] cube:

https://www.mesora.org/maimonidestablets.htm

The "Ten Commandments" as described by Jewish tradition is very unlike the classic depiction of two grey stone tablets with rounded tops

*If only people would learn how to code! (it's the real meaning of playtime) --

Morse Surname Meaning

Welsh and English: variant of Morris.

Americanized form of various like-sounding Jewish surnames especially Moses.

https://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=morse

Moses picks up each precious piece of the tablets, he collects every shard, and he lovingly places every piece in the holy Ark, conveying a message that guides the Jewish heart for all time.

https://aish.com/the-broken-tablets/

The breaking of the Law is one the tragedies on the 17th of Tammuz, which was America's birthday in 1776.

"Jewish heart" [לב יהודי]

<--->

"The 4th of July" [ה-ד' ביולי]

Oh hey, BTW that first famous Morse telegraph message "What Hath God Wrought" (from Num 23:23) was sent on May 24, 1844.

This was Sivan 6 on the Jewish calendar -- Shavous, the day of the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai, also the traditional date for the birth and death of King David.

In the Jewish world, that verse is located in the 5th reading (Thursdays) of Parshat Balak, the 40th parsha.

It just might be an important detail. You read it here first. 😉

[SunkenCiv]

• Aluminum Oxide | Chem.libretexts.org

[bobcat62]

Details, details. ;-)

[sauropod]

Bkmk

[Billthedrill]

A keyboard?? How quaint.

Yeah, and his microphone didn't work either. Things must have been pretty primitive in the 20th century.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

They have developed "sort of " Transparent Aluminum. (a clear ceramic)

What’s The Deal With Transparent Aluminum?

"Despite clearly not being a metal — and not a glass either; glasses are amorphous solids, while ceramics are crystalline — AlON and the other transparent ceramics that have been developed since have some amazing properties. AlON, marketed as the uncreatively named ALON by its manufacturer, Surmet Corporation, is produced by sintering. Powdered ingredients are poured into a mold, compacted under tremendous pressure, and cooked at high temperatures for days. The resulting translucent material is ground and polished to transparency before use.

Aside from being optically clear, ALON is also immensely tough. Tests show that a laminated pane of ALON 1.6″ thick can stop a 50 caliber rifle round, something even 3.7″ of traditional “bullet-proof” glass can’t do. ALON also has better optical properties than regular glass in the infrared wavelengths; where most glasses absorbs IR, ALON is essentially transparent to it. That makes ALON a great choice for the windows on heat seeking missiles and other IR applications."

Except for the IR transparent part, a good thing for those "See Through" parts of your Jet Fighter cockpit! I imagine that they can sandwich in something to remove the eye damaging IR wavelengths.

[The Antiyuppie]

When I would do critical system updates i’d pick up the mouse in front of everyone and say, “Hello, computer!” into it.

[Ezekiel]

Bauxite is purified by the Bayer process which is the principal industrial refining process.

Ain't that the truth. Thanks. What a day!

[SauronOfMordor]

For things like a scratch resistant coating for small things like camera lenses, it’s not expensive.

[Jonty30]

Probably about $20 on a $1000 camera. Very reasonable.