People cherish diamonds for their beauty and the sense of status and permanence they convey to the wearer, but someday soon these most precious of stones may serve an even more practical purpose than filling out engagement rings and anniversary pendants: protecting smartphone displays from the chips and spider web–like cracks that develop after countless drops and hours of tapping and swiping.
Unlike the nuggets mined from deep in Earth’s crust, display-screen diamonds would be grown in the lab of AKHAN Semiconductor, a company developing ways to use synthetic diamonds to enhance electronics. By the end of the year AKHAN plans to begin making glass smartphone screens coated with a microns-thick layer of diamond, which the company says will be more scratch-resistant and less prone to shattering. The company will not say, however, which smartphone makers might use its Miraj Diamond Glass or how it would keep the cost of those screens affordable.
Regardless of whether AKHAN delivers, the idea of using diamonds to solve the widespread problem of cracked smartphone screens bears scrutiny. A Motorola study from a couple of years ago noted nearly a third of U.S. smartphone users have handsets with cracked screens and that many continue to use those screens even after cutting a finger on them. Diamond is the hardest bulk material found in nature, and synthetic versions are likely to be more resistant to scratching than the Corning Gorilla Glass used to make most smartphone displays or even the sapphire crystal that Apple uses for its Apple Watch displays.
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