Sensor-Laden Gorilla Glass Could Be Future Smart Display

When it comes to tough displays on mobile devices, one name keeps on coming up, and that is none other than Corning’s Gorilla Glass. Smartphones tend to be the biggest market for Gorilla Glass, where it offers a decent level of durability and scratch resistance, but is there all there is to it? Apparently not, if some innovation is thrown into the mix. Researchers from Polytechnique Montreal in Canada have teamed up with Corning to develop Gorilla Glass that has transparent sensors implanted within, transforming the glass panel itself into a sensor array.

Such technology would utilize optical waveguides that helps to funnel photons through the glass channels instead of falling back upon electricity flowing through wires. This ensures that the glass will remain transparent, although the work required is pretty hair raising, since individual sensors will have to be laser-etched right under the surface of the Gorilla Glass, which so happens to be the optimal material (at this point in time) to undergo the etching process. Sort of like Logan’s healing factor being the ideal attribute to have him undergo the adamantium bonding process.

Practical-wise, the research team has already developed a light based temperature sensor that they call a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI), which is an infrared light security identification system that will help prevent devices from being cloned, and we cannot wait to see this technology see an expansion of its use.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: gorilla glass