Steve Jobs' faith in Boron was manifested in iPhone

Apple founder Steve Jobs fought with great perseverance and conviction with Corning, a 172-year-old glass manufacturer, to produce toughened glass for Apple iPhones that contains boron.

Boron is used in toughened glass products because of its exceptional qualities and workability in development and durability as a finished product. So how did Steve Jobs support the introduction of toughened glass into the industry in the early days of the iPhone?

Firstly, let's look at how boron combines with the dark side of silicon to create toughened glass. When boron combines with silicon dioxide, the result is a highly durable glass compared to the traditional soda lime glass found in windows and low-cost bottles.

The toughened glass industry owes boron a huge debt of gratitude, as boron is a critical component in glassware vital for industry and laboratory uses. The combination of durability and low coefficient of thermal expansion means it can withstand shocks and rapid temperature changes much better than traditional soda lime glass.

When you think of toughened borosilicate glass, the word Pyrex comes to mind. This dates back to 1915, when the Corning glass company researched toughened glass. One hundred years later, the world continues to use Pyrex in kitchens everywhere.

Glass expands and contracts rapidly with temperature change. The atoms of the material vibrate more with heat and the glass increases the space between atoms.

In addition, a phenomenon called devitrification is critical to how glass melts and viscosity. And this can be manipulated for different purposes during manufacturing. Devitrification is defined as the tendency of a material to form crystals with temperature change.

Corning has been at the forefront of harnessing the properties of borated glass to create a variety of technical glasses for use in everything from laboratory glass to glass substrates for high-performance displays and protective glass used in mobile phone devices. This combination of processability, manufacturing and hardness in the final product makes boron a superstar in glass products.

Boron is one of the main components of the first Corning Gorilla Glass (Gorilla Glass) products. But it all happened by chance. The research lab was cutting the glass by drawing lines on it and then breaking the pieces to be analysed in search of new compositions.

One researcher explains that it is almost impossible to break the glass along the score lines, adding: "We used tubing again to remove bubbles from the mirror and discovered by chance that this made the glass extremely resistant to damage".

It was against this background that Apple called in 2007. As written in his life story; Steve Jobs visited Corning in New York looking for something challenging that could replace the plastic in the first iPhone devices. In early 2007, Steve Jobs preferred to use glass instead of plastic in new iPhone products.

However, many glass samples broke very quickly. A colleague at Apple suggested that Steve Jobs consult Corning. They had a reputation for toughened glass products dating back to the 1960s.

Unlike most glass suppliers who visited Apple to sell their products, Steve Jobs flew to Corning headquarters in New York to meet specifically with Corning's CEO. He asked if the company could make toughened glass to meet the production requirements for the new iPhone range within six months. As a result of his consultations; the now famous gorilla glass (Gorilla Glass) came to the fore. But researchers at Corning were still working intensively on this glass in their research labs.

Jobs did not usually take no for an answer and placed a significant and huge pre-order for a non-commercial glass product as part of the iPhone product launch in the summer of 2007.

Corning subsequently produced several versions of gorilla glass with boron in it; each new version was made thinner and stronger using the boron properties described above to improve the product.

Heavy use tests cracked most of the glass samples, but still the improved scratch resistance ability to continue to work despite surface cracks greatly improved the usability and performance of mobile devices, a feature that is still relevant to this day. 

Today there are over 2.7 billion smartphone users and 10 billion mobile devices in use, all created by the smartphone industry. Durable glass is also used in laptops, tablets, smart watches, office walls and technologies such as GPS systems.

But it's not just Apple and smartphones that use Corning gorilla glass and other toughened glass to great effect. The US Armed Forces have been using glass head-up displays (HUD) in fighter jets and helmets for years, and now that the technology has been declassified, other industries, such as the automotive industry, are starting to use it. The effect of this system was a laminated layer of interior glass containing phosphorescent molecules that glowed red, green or blue when illuminated by an ultraviolet floodlight inside a car.

This new generation of HUDs would provide information about road conditions through the windscreen and focus the driver's view two to 10 metres in front of the vehicle.

The automotive industry is also using lightweight, super-tough materials in high-performance sports cars. Gorilla glass reduces the overall weight of the vehicle, which allows for higher speeds, with the added benefit of helping new vehicles meet low emission standards and better mileage.

Let's finish by looking at how Gorilla Glass is actually made. Glass has the basic elements of limestone, sand and a powder mixture containing sodium borate. Corning chemically strengthens the gorilla glass using a compression technique before immersing it in a salt bath at 400 degrees centigrade. The small sodium ions in the glass are replaced by larger potassium ions in the salt.

The largest sodium ions take up more space in the glass and are pressed together as the glass cools, creating a layer of compressive stress on the glass. This compression makes the glass highly resistant to damage and breakage. The resulting gorilla glass is hard, thin, lightweight and scratch resistant. On the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, gorilla glass rates nine out of 10. Normal glass has a score of seven and is much softer.

The emergence of competitive products is a sign of the success of Corning's gorilla glass Competitors include Japan's Asahi Glass, as well as Samsung, which is developing what they call an unbreakable screen. 

Glass companies will continue to innovate, and there will always be visionary, determined and risk-taking entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs who will continually demand improved performance and efficiency across multiple industries wherever glass and boron are used.