BARCELONA, Spain--Want a truly unbreakable cell phone screen? Lab-grown sapphire could be the screen of the future. In this demo unit we saw at Mobile World Congress, a sapphire cover screen is glued on top of the phone's glass screen. Despite the double layers of material, the phone was still just as responsive.
What happened? Nothing. There wasn't a crack, scratch, or sign of any pitting, just a tiny amount of concrete fairy dust that wipes away with your thumb.
The thin wafer of reinforced Gorilla Glass (right) wasn't as lucky. Although the chemically strengthened Gorilla Glass wards off cracks, glass isn't indestructible.
Chinese company Zhejiang Shangcheng Science and Technology shaped both the smartphone screen (left) and the jewel with sapphire supplied by GT Advanced Technologies.
It took 16 days to grow this 250-pound block of sapphire. From here, the boule, as it's called, can be shaved, shaped, polished, and sliced into fine wafers.
