A new polymer could prove to be a shattered-screens miracle if it turns out that your cracked iPhone could heal itself, as researchers in Tokyo have revealed and Engadget reported.
According to the study published in Science, the glass-like material called "polyether-thioureas" can heal cracks and breaks when pressed together with the hand, The Guardian explained.
The polymer, which could potentially be used on phone screens and other devices, is the first hard substance that can self-heal at room temperature. Other healable materials have to be heated up first.
"High mechanical robustness and healing ability tend to be mutually exclusive," said researchers led by Professor Takuzo Aida from the University of Tokyo, according to Engadet.
They said that self-healing materials previously developed required “heating to high temperatures, on the order of 120 degrees Celsius or more, to reorganize their cross-linked networks is necessary for the fractured portions to repair,” per The Guardian.
The new polymer glass is different in that it is “highly robust mechanically yet can readily be repaired by compression at fractured surfaces.”
It certainly seems strides are being made in self-repairing phone tech.
Earlier this year Motorola patented a display that can detect and heal its own cracked screen with heat through the use of shape memory polymer, The Verge reported.
Chemists at the University of California at Riverside have also been experimenting with self-healing technology and, according to Business Insider, were able to create material made from a stretchable polymer and an ionic salt that could repair itself from cuts and scratches.
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