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A<\/span>t\u00a0 Corning\u2019s headquarters in upstate New York, three people in bulky masks and silvery, spacesuit-like gear are working the research furnaces. They move gracefully and in harmony. They have to, to face a 1,600 \u00b0C furnace, grab an incandescent crucible of molten glass, pour out the material, and shape it before it hardens. One worker\u2019s glove begins to smoke; he seems to pay it no mind.<\/p>\n\u201cThey\u2019re doing a ballet,\u201d says Adam Ellison, a materials scientist at the company, watching the furnace workers as the glass dumps brimstone-like heat into the surrounding air. \u201cIt\u2019s hot as hell, the glass gets stiff very quickly, and you can only work with it for a few minutes,\u201d he says. Ellison would know\u2014he helped develop the material they\u2019re pouring, which is branded Gorilla Glass and is found on many smartphones because it is tough, thin, and lightweight.<\/p>\n
These researchers are helping Corning investigate just how much further it can push the properties of glass. If the company could make glass that is difficult to scratch and break but also bendy, it could open up entirely new product categories: cell phones and tablets that fold or roll, for example. Thin, flexible glass might also turn curvy surfaces such as car interiors into touch-screen displays.<\/p>\n
The research melter team prepares about eight to 12 experimental pours a day, providing samples for company scientists. The scientists want to know what will happen if they try something new, such as melting glass at a different temperature. The team also tests different manufacturing methods to see how they affect glass properties.<\/p>\n
Potential new products are subject to every kind of abuse Corning engineers can think of and quantify. One machine repeatedly bends a thin piece of glass to see how long it will hold up; another machine bends glass in two until it shatters with an eardrum-shocking pop. Specialists in fractography\u2014the science of how and why materials like glass fracture\u2014use custom machines to measure the pressure required to fracture glass. With microscopes, researchers study the mechanical messages in the resulting crack pattern. Glass that\u2019s stronger will fracture with a large number of cracks; weaker glass cracks in only a few places. Materials that pass the test might next be made into cell-phone dummies and repeatedly dropped from waist height onto cement, gravel, and other surfaces.<\/p>\n