Manufactured sapphire is used as transparent armour in military vehicles and thanks to the increasing research and competition among the manufacturers it will replace the Gorilla Glass used to protect the smartphones display sooner or later.
Sapphire- a
crystalline form of Aluminium oxide, is hardest of all the naturally
existing materials except diamonds. It would cost at least $30 to
protect a smartphone display using the manufactured sapphire whereas
this cost reduces down to a meagre $3 if the Gorilla Glass is used. It
is speculated that the cost of covering a smartphone display with
sapphire will go as down as $20 within a year.
At this point of time it is hard for the sapphire manufacturers to compete with Corning (the manufacturer Gorilla Glass) but it should be kept in mind that sapphire is substantially tougher than gorilla glass.
A
smartphone screen protected by sapphire is completely Shatterproof
against face down drop tests and also can’t be scratched with the keys.
The Apple iPhone 5 uses sapphire lens to protect the camera. It is believed that products using sapphire protection are in the pipeline and will be on sale later this year.