iPhone 12 screen proven strong in drop test. But this company says its ‘glass’ is 3 times harder

It’s been not so long since the jaw-dropping iPhone 12 drop-test was conducted. Another rival has cropped up claiming its alternative “glass” for electronics protection like smartwatches and phones is 3x harder than the iPhone 12’s ceramic screen. What backs their claim? Because the glass is made of diamond, specifically – diamond glass.

Let’s take a look. The iPhone 12 has a brand new material inside to protect its fine display (that’s the material under the “glass” that lights up the pixels you see on the screen). Known as Ceramic Shield, the latest glass topper is manufactured by Corning, the same brand that makes the new Gorilla Glass Victus cover material for Samsung’s Galaxy Note 20 Ultra.

Apple, which partnered with Corning to produce Ceramic Shield just for the iPhone, says this substance is “tougher than any smartphone glass.” Considering the outcome of our drop test, that could well be true.

Ceramic Shield is a kind of translucent, chemically generated glass that’s superheated unit it becomes extremely hard. What is diamond glass then? From the reports, we’ve witnessed over the last several years, diamond glass is also a kind of reflective and transparent material as you’d need from the top layer protecting your devices.

Because it’s made from crystalline diamond, one of the hardest known substances, manufacturers have considered the substance as a solid alternative to regular glass, which can still break, crack and scratch despite sustaining a process to chemically strengthen it.

In particular, this material is called Miraj Diamond Glass, includes lab-grown diamond nanomaterials that are very small, they can be splashed in an ultrathin layer on top of either glass or plastic to create a much harder surface. Theoretically, Miraj Diamond Glass could even veil ultrathin foldable glass like the kind given in the Galaxy Z Fold 2.

On paper, diamond glass is naturally harder than ceramic glass like the Ceramic Shield of iPhone 12 and Schott Ceran Miradur, which is utilised in cooktops, simply because the properties of diamond nanocrystal will score higher  on industry-level standards of pressure and hardness than ceramic glass. Schott’s website shows its ceramic glass is almost as hard as a diamond.

To validate the advantage of its material – which is yet unavailable in a commercial product – Akhan Semiconductor established a lab at Northwestern University that employs nanotechnology to conduct microindentation testing, a standard method to study a material’s hardness at a microscopic level, using an indenter tool made using a diamond, one of the hardest natural material.

The result? The claim that Mirak Diamond Glass cover material layered onto ceramic glass is over three times harder than any ceramic glass alone could ever be – including the iPhone 12’s screen. As per Akhan Semiconductor, ceramic glass measures a maximum of 10 Gigapascals, a unit of pressure, compared to diamond glass, which reaches over 36 Gigapascals.

But there’s a catch. The lab’s microindentation test took place before Apple rolled out the iPhone 12, which means that the claim remains theoretical so far. The best test would be a one-to-one comparison of Miraj Diamond Glass and Ceramic Shield of Corning using the same tool – in this case, two iPhone 12 phones, one as is and the other sprayed in an additional layer of hardened diamond dust.

That said, a microindentation examination is only one measure of hardness, and one method to test whole durability and strength. Scratch tests, drop tests and other stress tests would draw a clearer picture of how diamond glass would withstand against your real life accidents and abuses, including scratches, drops and other types of physical or temperature tortures.

We understand that a material itself may act one way when it’s a flat rectangle on a piece of steel. But laying it on a device that bends, curves and stretches in spots can also shift the forces that cause a material to act one way or another.

This is one of the reasons why the screen corners of mobile phones seem more susceptible to scratches and cracks, and it’s what makes these real-world practical so important. Diamond Glass has been one of the most promising materials for the last several years. But until it is used in commercial devices, it won’t have a chance to gain real popularity.