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charon writes:

At Corning's 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 °C furnace, grab an incandescent crucible of molten glass, pour out the material, and shape it before it hardens. One worker's glove begins to smoke; he seems to pay it no mind.

"They're doing a ballet," says Adam Ellison, a materials scientist at the company, watching the furnace workers as the glass dumps brimstone-like heat into the surrounding air. "It's hot as hell, the glass gets stiff very quickly, and you can only work with it for a few minutes," he says. Ellison would know—he helped develop the material they're pouring, which is branded Gorilla Glass and is found on many smartphones because it is tough, thin, and lightweight.

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.

Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603464/inside-the-far-out-glass-lab/

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