Flexible Willow glass displays thin and curvy gadget future

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"The extraordinary flexibility of the glass comes from the materials used to build it and the process by which it is made."

Vidoe long on pretty, short on information.

BTW the "spilling out of a trough" is basically the Pilkington process where the glass floats on molten tin.

However the equilibrium thickness for this is set by surface tension and density of the glass and the tin to around IIRC 7mm, but surface quality is excellent. The *thinning* process that Corning have developed sounds amazing.

Note You know have a substrate that can take 500c process temperatures without damage which is also transparent.

This *could* open up lots of more speculative ideas (if the price is right) which have been handicapped because some of the other pieces need high temperature process that existing substrates would be destroyed by.

Thumbs up for some clever engineering.

Well, that explains everything

"The extraordinary flexibility of the glass comes from the materials used to build it and the process by which it is made."

"a device similar to a printing press"

Ever seen a printing press?

Old news.

Isn't this the same thin flexible glass that was going to revolutionise everything about 20 years ago? I'm still waiting for my motorcycle visor with 0.1mm glass glued on it.

question

I wonder, if you flatten it bent over does is fracture or crease (like plastic)?

I further wonder what the smallest diameter bend that can be achieved is, and how many flexes before it fractures/creases.

I even further wonder if I should hold onto my iPhone 3G for just one more year to get next years phone with roll out screen?!

Lies

I see someone holding a bit of bendy perspex and an animation of some rollers.

It all seems like lies to me.

Tells us nothing

How does it break? How is it cut? What is the impact resistance?

Oops. Corning *do* have their own glass process

It works by filling a trough (or "isopipe" as they call it) which has a triangular cross section tapering to a point at the bottom. When over filled the contents form a sheet dripping down each side. The sheets merge to give the final result.

The key benefit is that the inner and outer faces of the new sheet have *never* been in contact with anything (even Tin) and their smoothness can be very good and the sheet can be stretched further.

Some of their patents suggest the isopipe is machined out of Silcon Nitride or Carbide (which needs to made in a low Oxygen environment) then surface oxidized to form a silica outer layer to reduce contamination even further.

It's not very well explained in the article and I'd never heard of it *ever* before. Apparently it was developed in the late 60s to make car windscreens. Other than not being the Pilkington process I'm not sure what benefits it would have bought to that application.

My bad