It's 2014
Everything is faked
A bloke on the internet has attempted to stab to bits what he describes as an Apple "iPhone 6" - but was stopped dead by the gizmo's frontispiece, perhaps fashioned of wondro-material "sapphire glass". Marques Brownlee, a Youtube tech reviewer who goes under the name MKBHD, managed to get his hands on two dummy models of what …
Quartz is a 7 on the MoHs scale of mineral hardness. Glass is 5.5, hardened steel is 7.5, sapphire is 9. So it is not surprising that sand would scratch glass, but it will not scratch sapphire. Nor is it surprising that he failed to scratch it with a knife point.
I am utterly shocked it is as flexible as his video showed, however.
Indeed, sapphire is extremely hard. I have a rather expensive Rado wristwatch that has a sapphire face cover. It's virtually indestructible and will take any amount of bashing and scraping. They harden the metal as well, mind you, to make the whole thing ultra scratch proof. People have looked on in shock as I've deliberately scraped it along brick and concrete walls for a laugh. It's 10 years old and it looks like I bought it yesterday. NB I don't work for Rado.
I wonder if Apple will ever get that Liquid Metal thing to work. One of its claimed properties is to be extremely resistant to scratches, harder than the hardest steels. So long as it is harder than quartz, it wouldn't scratch in most situations (short of trying to scratch it with a gemstone or carbide tipped tool)
If they have sapphire on front and still have aluminum on back, they'll still get scratched it just won't impede your view of the screen...
I've been carting a liquid metal usb stick around in my pocket for years. It's not so much scratched as developed a kind of patina. I've been annoyed with Apple for a long time now for stitching up the liquid metal contract; I would defo love another higher capacity usb stick made with it, damn good stuff.
@Mike Bell
You complete swine. I'd never heard of Rado, went to the site and looked at their watches and found one that's just what I've been looking for, elegant and incredibly understated. As far as the price goes, *ouch* is an understatement, and I'd be afraid to wear it in case I lost it.
I think it would actually.
Certainly as the video demonstrates the flat surface on the front (and presumably back) of the panel are very durable. But I suspect repeated high speed impacst from sharp blades in the Blendtec blender to the thin edges of the panel would do some more serious damage.
Probably....but there's a chance the blades might just sort of bounce it up above the blades and it'll be continually bouncing off the blades and the sides/top of the blender until it is shut off. That's why I'd like to see it, because one can't be certain it will turn into a sandy grit within seconds as would be the case if one did this with a glass panel.
The book of Jobs, Chapter 3, verses III-IV:
Therefore took Marques a blade and it was put upon the flesh of The Lord's new phone smiteth could it not.
And the people spake unto him "What about keys?"
And thus did Marques look upon the crowd with dismay and shout "Verily, doubters, I presenteth these sharp tools - See!", yet no fresh wound sprang forth, and there was much gnashing and wailing of teeth among the people, and all around got down on their knees and prayed for forgiveness to The Lord for having purchased an android.
That was the end of the Lesson.
"Mr MKBHD writes that he is "pumped" for the release of the iPhone 6, which we're hoping means he will be more ambitious in his choice of weaponry for the next video."
I immediately misread that as hoping he wasn't getting too enthusiastic* about the prospect of getting one.
My mind is broken today, I think.
Steven R
*I meant wanking himself into a sweaty lather. Enjoy that lunchtime mental image, everyone.
"Mr MKBHD writes that he is "pumped" for the release of the iPhone 6, which we're hoping means he will be more ambitious in his choice of weaponry for the next video."
I immediately misread that as hoping he wasn't getting too enthusiastic* about the prospect of getting one.
I think this sort of thing is more what The Reg was suggesting.
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This is really impressive. I suspect guerilla marketing from Apple if this is genuinely their new screen, but I don't care. I really, really like to see technology such as this in phones.
In fact if it's that tough, I'd like to see an entire phone case made out of it so that I can see the phone hardware inside. Can this be moulded into something other than a flat plane?
In any case, beautiful technology.
On most modern phones, a clear rear cover is really only going to show you the battery, since it takes up the vast bulk of space behind the rear cover. That's probably a big part of why, when Google/LG and Apple made phones with glass backs, they chose not to show the phone's innards.
Glass is a relatively poor heat conductor, so making a whole phone out of it might cause some cooling issues. I love the glass and stainless steel sandwich design concept, but Apple seem wedded to their unibody aluminium technique now, and you can't deny the advantage to size and weight.
Over the years I've seen the odd video review where they drop a phone from 5/6ft to simulate dropping your phone on the pavement (sidewalk). Drop it into a bucket of water - to simulate (it's lunch time so I won’t pollute your mind with that mental image - Thank you Steven R - bar-steward), all reasonably average simulations of what might happen to a phone real life.
But an "assault rifle"?
all reasonably average simulations of what might happen to a phone real life.
But an "assault rifle"?
Well, on the risk of this being in poor taste, that appears to be real life in the US if the reports of shopping mall and school shootings are anything to go by. Maybe the phone of choice in states with "stand your ground" laws..
"It is an extremely high quality material and really durable. It's paper thin - like literally the same thickness as a piece of paper - and totally see-through. I would say zero per cent opacity,"
So...toughened glass is both (a) tough, (b) transparent (sapphire glass has been around for years and years) but because it's associated with an Apple product he feels the need to get all tumescent about it.
>>"but because it's associated with an Apple product he feels the need to get all tumescent about it."
I don't even own any Apple products and I think this is cool. Just because tech companies are treated like football teams by some tragic cases, doesn't mean many of us don't just really like good technology and science.
"Who keeps their phone in their pocket?! I keep mine under my bowler hat."
How positively vulgar. A real gentleman has his manservant carry his mobile communication apparatus a respectable 10 paces** behind his master.
** unless he is required to open doors, clear the labouring classes out of the way etc.
Apple spent over a billion dollars in an exclusive deal with GT Advanced to build a special factory to expand the worldwide sapphire production by 10x to get enough for their use, and it took several years of planning, research and building to make this happen. This isn't something other companies can just buy on the open market, not in the volumes needed for anything more than a limited production run of a low volume product.
If Samsung or whoever wanted to do this, it would take them at least a couple years to do so, unless they already started working on it when the first rumors about Apple and GT Advanced surfaced.
I said they weren't in the same volume as the iPhone, however they aren't touted as 'extra durable' just luxury.
The idea that it is Apple that has made this an exclusive and set up the supply chains just isn't true. There are phone manufacturers who have been doing this since the 90s and were the pioneers in getting worldwide supply chains set up to use large sapphire crystal displays.
To Quote: "This meant the Hampshire-based British firm had to go out and find its own Sapphire source and create its own supply chain, one that was capable of creating crystals large enough to meet its requirements.
"We found one or two suppliers in the late 90s who we then started working with to get the bits we wanted."
Back to the present day and Vertu now has Sapphire suppliers around the world who are capable of making single sheets of glass large enough to cover the 4.7-inch full HD screen of the firm's latest flagship device - the Signature Touch."
"If Samsung or whoever wanted to do this, it would take them at least a couple years to do so"
The problem here is the assumption that they're all starting from scratch, when there have been continual developments of increasing the strength of screens. I don't care about marketing buzzwords like "billion dollars", "exclusive deal", "special factory", "years of planning, research and building to make this happen" - that's what _all_ technology companies are doing.
As always, we only get a press-release masquerading as news when it's Apple, even when they're just playing catch-up.
My last three phones have all had Gorilla glass and, after a couple of years of daily use, none of them had a scratch on them that was visible except held up to a bright light and subject to very close inspection.
I never use a screen protector and Gorilla glass has served me well.
I don't know what you have been doing with your phone(s) but I suggest you give being slightly careful a go. A smartphone is an electronic device, not a lump hammer.
I'm shocked at how flexible it was. When he is holding it down with his shoe he bends it at nearly a 90* angle. Typically very hard materials are more brittle. Either that's not true of sapphire, this isn't pure sapphire but is some combination material (making it even harder for others to replicate) or the video was faked and that was a plastic panel he was bending.
While the latter is possible, it seems pointless to do since he'd be exposed once the real iPhone 6 surfaces.
or the video was faked and that was a plastic panel he was bending.
I cannot recall any transparent plastic having that sort of strength at that thickness. Typically, transparency is paid for by being more brittle so you'd either end up with it shattering, or with plastic (sorry) permanent deformation.
"Here I am, holding the glass. I will stab towards my hand, hoping that the glass does not deflect the blade directly into my fleshy bits."
"And now here I am torquing the glass in such a manner that a failure would splatter my soft, nerve-ending-filled fingertips and palms with shrapnel."
It truly must be a Jesus phone, because it's a miracle this man didn't injure himself.
It truly must be a Jesus phone, because it's a miracle this man didn't injure himself.
Absolutely - you'd wear VERY decent gloves if you insist on doing this with your hands instead of decent equipment that you can operate from a distance. Oh, and eye protection would not be a bad idea either - flying sharped edged shards and soft eyeballs are not really compatible.
Having said that, with a bit of luck he'll try breaking the wrong thing whilst held at nut level so he can collect a Darwin award whilst still alive.
As someone who deals with this sort of thing professionally, I'd like to address some of the issues raised here:
* Re: DougS - Indeed, sapphire glass (a.k.a. corundum, alumina, etc.) is exceptionally hard. Scratching it would require something of the order of silicon carbide, boron carbide or diamond. As such, we agree that its ability to handle this abuse is not at all surprising. If you want to challenge the stuff, silicon carbide sandpaper is easy enough to come by, not to mention diamond rings. That said, please note that this may provoke an additional reaction from those to which said rings are attached, especially if they also happen to own the object of your amateur sclerometry.
* Re: DougS, various ACs - Concerning the flexibility, similar things have been accomplished with Gorilla Glass - and we all know how flexible glass optical fibers and fiberglass are. While this sort of thing is always a bit of a shock to see at least initially, given how much stronger sapphire is than glass, this is also not surprising. In fact, you can buy Schott glass screen protectors for digital cameras (Giotto's Aegis product line, for instance) that are of similar thickness and flexible. Bottom line, I can assure everyone here that this is not faked, plastic, etc. For anyone who needs more proof, this video is a lot of fun to watch (though to be fair, just looking at the bend they get in a sheet of glass that size makes me very, very nervous):
http://www.corninggorillaglass.com/gorilla-channel/How-Corning-Tests-Gorilla%C2%AE-Glass
More fun videos like that here:
http://www.corninggorillaglass.com/gorilla-channel
* Re: Admiral Grace Hopper, DougS - Yes, it will blend; a sharp enough impact and this, like all brittle materials, will shatter. A blender should work just fine, though it will dull the hell out of the blades in the process, and make an ungodly racket (iRacket?) as well.
* Re: Mr. Hamill / all other interested parties - If the wish is to know whether sapphire glass will stop an American assault rifle, on this point I can only speculate, but I suppose it would depend on how hard you threw it. As to the bullets coming out of said rifle, since this sort of materials is already in play in the transparent armor market, and has been shown to stop 7.62mm AP rounds - see here:
http://www.crystals.saint-gobain.com/uploadedFiles/SG-Crystals/Documents/SAFirE.pdf
...I would say that the answer is a qualified yes - though I would further speculate that an iPhone 6 is *probably* not an optimal ballistic protection system and that clearly you would need a bit more than a single unit to do it. Now, a *suit* of iPhones, overlapped in the form of scale-mail, with some phonebooks behind to catch the resultant iSpall, that could work, assuming you had the strength to wade through the human swarm that would surely form around you ("How shall we f*** off, oh Lord?", etc., etc.). On the positive side, they too would offer significant ballistic protection, so perhaps this isn't so bad.
* Re: The Man Himself - It is absolutely correct that toughened glass and sapphire have been around for years. Of course, they have gotten better at making these materials over time, but one of the early applications of sapphire glass (which is not really a glass but a single crystal of high purity aluminum oxide) was in bar code scanners at the grocer's - because it's both incredibly resistant to scratching and abrasion (which would otherwise disable the scanner over time). It's also IR-transparent, though as far as I know those scanners generally rely on red lasers, not IR sources.
* Re: DaLo, DougS: The idea that this synthetic sapphire is not "true" sapphire is only accurate in the sense that these do not come from pieces of great big blue stones dug out of the ground. We could just as easily call it ruby glass, since sapphire and ruby are both alumina crystals with minor impurities to give color (you can get other colors besides with the right doping). The difference in the case of the synthetic stuff is that it is entirely free of such impurities - hence no color. As far as I know, adding something would only compromise the properties, so we're talking pure alumina, as pure as you can get.
* One caveat concerning sapphire is that, while its initial fracture toughness is ~4x that of Gorilla Glass, it is not possible to prepare single crystal sapphire sheets with the sorts of built-in compressive stresses that glass manufacturers can build into their materials thanks to their truly glassy (amorphous) nature. As such, the argument goes, the initially high toughness of the sapphire will be reduced in practice because of the generation of microcracks in its surface over time. Once formed, if the material is bent and if there are no built-in compressive stresses to counteract the tensile stresses imposed on the outside of the bend, these microcracks will propagate rapidly, resulting in failure. Corning purports to show this here:
http://www.corninggorillaglass.com/news-events/Corning-Gorilla-Glass-vs.-Sapphire
They're rather down on sapphire more generally here:
http://www.corning.com/news_center/features/gorillaglasssuccess.aspx
Of course, since they sell Gorilla Glass, it behooves them to make the argument. I suspect that those who use sapphire are attempting to address the issues of scratch and abrasion resistance that many complain about with glass screens, and relying on this high level of durability to suppress microcrack formation for a reasonable amount of time. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out in the real world.
PS - To be clear, I do not work for any of the companies referred to here (nor have I in the past), and to date I have not been involved in any research efforts specifically related to the sapphire, glass or Gorilla Glass materials discussed.
Arc_Light
Excellent post, Arc_Light. Thank you for this: "Now, a *suit* of iPhones, overlapped in the form of scale-mail, with some phonebooks behind to catch the resultant iSpall, that could work, assuming you had the strength to wade through the human swarm that would surely form around you"
Some input on stopping bullets: the US military's "SAPI" and ESAPI armor inserts, which are designed to stop 7.62mm armor piercing rounds, use a layer of boron carbide or silicon carbide about as thick as the iPhone 6's entire body. The ceramic layer is then bonded to a resin-impregnanted panel of Spectra fibers (also about as thick as an iPhone), and wrapped in a layer of glued-on fabric meant to help contain fragments and hold the insert together when the ceramic cracks in normal handling. Overall thickness is about 20mm.
Note that sapphire (well, polycrystalline alumina) is considered a poor man's alternative to carbides, borides, and nitrides in armor design, and was mostly abandoned by NATO by the 1970s. The exception is transparent armors, what with carbides, nitrides, borides, and steels being rather opaque.
All together, I'd guess that an iPhone 6 and its thin sheet of sapphire might reliably stop a small pistol bullet, but otherwise it'd just create a lot of iSpall (thank you, Arc_Light) that doctors (surgical or forenic) have to pull out of your body if you tried to use an iPhone 6 to stop assault rifle bullets (whether they're just 5.56mm standard ball ammunition or 7.62mm armor piercing.)
Funny, coincidentally this iPhone 6 sapphire screen news hit as I was running some sapphire panels through a sand chamber (MIL-STD-810F, Method 510.4 Sand & Dust testing). Sapphire's good stuff, but it didn't win against every quartz grain I threw at it. I can only imagine the reaction when Apple true believers drop their phone in a purse or pocket with a diamond or tungsten carbide ring. Or drop it on a sharp corner.
"As far as I know, adding something would only compromise the properties, so we're talking pure alumina, as pure as you can get."
Quite correct. Standard alumina, for making Al metal, is 99.0 to 99.7 % Al2O3. Certain higher grade Al s (ie, say for packaging chips in I think) at 99.9, 99.99% Al purity will start from an Al2O3 at 99.9 or 99.99 % purity.
Sapphire manufacturing usually starts with a 99.9% alumina for low grade material, 99.99 % and 99.995% are well known in use and there's a few people starting with 99.999%.
The higher purities become very expensive. Mostly because they're simply not produced at scale (a few hundred tonnes a year maybe, as against tens of millions of tonnes of alumina more generally).
I remember having the microcracking phenomenon demonstrated for several toughened glasses and alumina years ago, and I think that what it shows is that alumina will work very well for phone screens provided people don't think it can stand frequent abuse, but it will provide much more protection against occasional events that might shatter another screen material. It's interesting watching a controlled hammer drop on a test sample which appears totally unaffected for maybe 50 impacts, and then shatters without warning on the next one.
It certainly looks like a product differentiator for Apple that will enable them to keep their margins up in the window between release, and everybody else being able to use it, which could be anything from two to five years.
For those of us, however, who expect our phones to survive accidental immersion in hydrogen fluoride at around 460C, Apple still isn't going to be an option in the Venusian phone market.
Blendtec blades are actually dull already - they combine high power, high speed to bludgeon the contents to itty-bitty pieces. Looking at one of their jugs, it breaks pretty much every rule of blender design, but still induces a head-slapping "why wasn't this obvious?!" response.
One major advantage of iPhones, at least for clumsy oafs like me, are the screen repair costs.
Shop a bit and I could get an iPhone 4 screen replaced for 65$ CAD, wo Groupons. 45 w Groupons. iPhone5 are pricier, probably 90-110, but that compares very well to $200+ for most other smartphones*. Ain't broken my Nexus 5 yet, but I dread what it would cost.
So... does this new material mean that we won't ever get broken screens? I tend to take that with a grain of salt.
Or will it mean $200 screen replacements, by Apple only?
* I think the costs have to do with the fact that each iPhone generation has identical screens, color aside. Other manufacturers have many models, forcing repair shops to hold more inventory, which trickles down to us. Plus, you can order an iPhone 4 screen for $40 from China, supposedly.
Hi all,
Thanks for the positive feedback and interesting responses! Very nice to see a healthy interest in materials science.
* cray74 - Sounds like we may be up to the same sorts of things from time to time! Totally agree, it's the non-oxide ceramics that win when it comes to ballistic protection, assuming transparency is not a requirement. It's amazing how tough and light the new ballistic protection is, even if the soldiers will always want it lighter (can't say I blame them given how much they lug around). That said, two small corrections:
- Commercial sapphire glass is actually monocrystalline - since the usual crystal structure of alumina is not sufficiently isotropic, it almost has to be to meet the optical requirements (well, barring trickery such as grain orientation in magnetic fields, doping to stabilize more isotropic crystal structures, etc.). Anyway, back to the screens, what we're looking at are single crystals, grown from seeds, then cut down and polished using some very expensive polishing media. This is why you see it used in smartphones but not, say, single-pane windows on the White House or what have you - they can only go so big. For vehicles they have to use multiple panels of the stuff with some binder in between. Frankly, it's amazing that it works at all to grow sapphire glass as they do - some serious engineering, that!
- Concerning the idea that non-oxide ceramics are by definition opaque, this is true sometimes, but not always. In other instances it's more that we suck at making single crystals of sufficient purity. Case in point, silicon carbide. We know it as a darkly colored or black material primarily because the stuff we see contains excess carbon. This is not a problem for sandpaper, but if you want to use it as a wide band-gap semiconductor in power electronics and the like, extra carbon is right out. Among the many different polytypes of SiC out there, you can easily get band gaps large enough to preclude significant absorption of visible light - meaning transparency becomes a possibility so long as you take microstructure into account (for some polytypes you'd need single crystals to get it, for others you might be able to get away with polycrystalline materials). That said, no need to take my word for it - see here:
http://resilienttechnology.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/why-silicon-carbide/
This is from 2010, so definitely not current, but even then you can see the progress they were making as far as both size and purity were concerned. Here's a nice picture of what you can buy these days:
http://www.semiconductorwafers.net/Transparent-SiC.html
The problem is simple - if you think melt-growth of alumina single crystals (Tm ~ 2072°C) is hard, just try it out with SiC (Tm ~ 2730°C) some time :) That said, who knows - in some decades, maybe we'll be talking about silicon carbide "glass" for the iPhone 42... The same folks who make the sapphire glass for Apple also make furnaces for growing high purity SiC, after all:
http://www.gtat.com/Products-and-services-PowerElectronics-SiClone.htm
* Arnaut the less - Well, first, see above - if Venus is where you're headed, I recommend waiting for the iPhone 42. With its beautiful silicon carbide glass shell, the iPhone 42 is the choice of extremophiles across the galaxy! Tired of other manufactureres' cheap diamond screens bursting into flames at the first hint of liquid oxygen? With its superior fire resistance, the silicon carbide casing of the iPhone 42 will stop fire in its tracks. Visiting Venus? Don't be caught with your pants down when the HF starts to fall - just grab your iPhone 42 and call for help! With luck, someone will find your corpse before it fully dissolves. The iPhone 42! It's the answer.
But seriously, SiC really will take that sort of abuse. The resistance of that stuff is insane; it's damn near impossible to etch (another reason it's taken so long to develop as a semiconductor).
Beyond that, you've reminded me of one of my favorite demos concerning microcracking and glass toughness. Take two well-used rods (settle down) of the same diameter based on pretty much any silicate glass you like. Cantilever one off the edge of a table. Have your densest coworker sit on the other end so it won't move (might want to offer them eye protection, a snack, and / or an iPhone 6 to make sure they won't either), and hang a bucket on the free end. Start filling with metal shot; eventually, of course, it will break. Now, take the other rod and give it a quick dip in HF - this eats the glass, the rod gets thinner, and of course, when you repeat the same experiment, the load at break is much higher.
The moral of this story, then, is very simple: For those concerned about the durability and appearance of their new iPhones, simply take them for a quick dunk in some HF from time to time to keep them looking their best. Of course, protecting your health is paramount when doing this, which is why you must always remember to turn the phone off before attempting such a thing. Believe me, you don't want to listen to Siri's reaction to The Process. There are certain things you can't un-hear.
* Lis 0r - Absolutely correct - blenders are funny that way, far more often it's about bashing, broadsword-style, than slicing, in spite of how we call the pointy bits "blades" and shape them accordingly - at least, superficially anyway... I expect that whatever is in the blender will experience higher localized stresses when bashed by a dull blade than by a really dull blade due to the increase in contact area as the dulling process continues, but the mode of action is definitely not obvious at first glance. I forget whether it was on Mythbusters or somewhere else, but I recall seeing some slow-mo video of a blender in action that proved the point - very cool.
* JLV - It'll take more than a grain of salt to do it, but have no fear, you'll still be able to break the iPhone 6 screen, if that's your thing - and yes, the replacements will not be cheap. This is why I must reiterate the importance of dipping your iPhone 6 in HF on a regular basis; it's the only way to be sure.
PS - As another example of insane and unexpected flexibility in materials we would normally refer to as rigid and brittle, check this out:
That's a 20 µm thick polycrystalline silicon wafer. For the record, silicon has a stiffness ~2x that of glass and maybe a half to two-thirds of that of sapphire.
PPS - There are two kinds of people in the world with access to HF - those who know to treat it with respect and those who soon will. Would strongly suggest not going for a Darwin Award based on anything I've said here.
Arc_Light
Arc_Light: "Commercial sapphire glass is actually monocrystalline"
Yep, but I was referring to the bulk, polycrystalline alumina used in situations comparable to the other ceramic body armor materials I mentioned, all of which tend to be made of sintered powders. I apologize for insufficiently clarifying that I had switched discussion away from sapphire glass to the closest alumina examples I could find, which were polycrystalline.
"Concerning the idea that non-oxide ceramics are by definition opaque, this is true sometimes, but not always. ... Case in point, silicon carbide. ... This is not a problem for sandpaper, but if you want to use it as a wide band-gap semiconductor in power electronics and the like, extra carbon is right out. Among the many different polytypes of SiC out there, you can easily get band gaps large enough to preclude significant absorption of visible light - meaning transparency becomes a possibility so long as you take microstructure into account..."
In a word: moissanite ;)
Again, I had switched from discussing purely transparent sapphire to the closest armor material examples, which were polycrystalline and generally opaque. I should've been clearer (har) about my topic shift in my attempt to address the bullet resistance of iPhone 6s.
Ah, got it - thanks for clarifying (sorry, sorry :) Indeed, I'd forgotten about the gemstone grade SiC - cheap only because the crystals are small compared to the semiconductor type, but nicer looking - no doping, so no color at all. Good stuff!
Arc_Light
Sapphire and Ruby can be really versatile and have come a long way in the last few years:
Oskar Moser GmbH for a quick list of potential applications.
Disclaimer: they used to be a supplier of mine but haven't engaged them for over a decade now.
Nice to see them diversfying away from jewel bearings.