Akhan Semiconductor appears to believe so. For those not familiar with this company, Akhan has had plenty of experience taking full advantage of one of the hardest substances in the planet for electronics purposes. And one of the ideas the firm is exploring is coming up with a smartphone display made of diamond.
Some may remember that it was almost exactly a year ago when Akhan Semiconductor had initially talked about developing diamond glass for use in mobile devices. Fast forwarding to 2018, the company is now saying that it is currently busy teaming up with a mobile manufacturer in order to test a diamond smartphone screen.
Smartphones these days have become sort of one of our most personal (and even prized) possessions, in the sense that we basically use them all the time and bring them just about everywhere. Unfortunately, these products are not as tough as nails, and smartphones’ displays are particularly vulnerable -- sometimes all it takes is just one unintentional drop for one’s screen to figuratively bite the dust after literally biting the dust. Phone makers often resort to Gorilla Glass (who has made big steps in building glass screens for phones), and even go as far as employing shatter proof coatings and sapphire crystal toppers. But screen cracks still happen.
Is diamond glass the answer then? Perhaps, according to Akhan Semiconductor. What the firm did with its take on the concept is make full use of a nanocrystal pattern that arranges the crystals in a random manner, as opposed to aligning them with their crystal planes. This way, the occurrence of deep cracks are minimized. The result of this process is the Miraj Diamond Glass, and Akhan Semiconductor claims that this glass will be significantly tougher than any other material used to coat a handset’s display screen.
Last year, Adam Khan, the chief executive officer of Akhan Semiconductor, had promised to produce a prototype before the end of 2017. Obviously, that did not happen, but the good news is that the company is getting there. As a matter of fact, it is now testing its diamond glass with a phone maker, and consumers might see a diamond screen smartphone debut some time next year.
But the road ahead will not be an easy one. Even if they do come up with a prototype, they will still have to figure out how to mass produce the diamond glass coated display. And another thing -- diamonds have very high reflectance, and using them on a smartphone’s screen may lead to increased glare for users.
