Corning's tough-but-light Gorilla Glass has become a common feature on smartphone displays, along with those of other consumer electronics such as TVs and computers. This Wednesday, however, the company announced the commercial launch of its new Lotus Glass. The material is designed specifically for organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays and next generation LCD screens.
Lotus Glass reportedly has a high annealing point - this means that when it is formed, it is heated to a high temperature and then allowed to slowly cool, which removes internal stresses and makes the finished product tougher. Generally speaking, the higher a glass's annealing point, the higher the temperatures in which it will be able to reliably operate.
Specifically, Lotus Glass should be able to avoid warping or sagging during high-temperature image processing.
"Because of its intrinsic stability, it can withstand the thermal cycles of customer processing better than conventional LCD glass substrates," said Andrew Filson, vice president of Corning Holding Japan. "This enables tighter design rules in advanced backplanes for higher resolution and faster response time."