Here’s how future Apple displays may ‘self-heal’ like Marvel’s Wolverine – Times of India

Samsung is currently the biggest player in the foldable smartphone category across global markets. The South Korea-based tech giant uses a special material that protects the displays of these devices from external factors and offers them durability. Rumours suggest that Apple is also planning to foray into the foldable smartphone category.
Meanwhile, the iPhone maker has taken another step toward achieving the goal by patenting a new display material that will come with ‘self-healing’ abilities (like Marvel’s Wolverine). This new material will reportedly help the display to recover from dents and scratches and might turn out to be an important technology for foldable devices. Apple might use this display technology for its foldable smartphones that the company plans to deliver in the coming years.

How will the new display material work?
Patently Apple reports that Apple might include the self-healing display material as the display cover layer of the upcoming foldable Apple smartphone. The report also suggests that the latest ‘Wolverine’ display material will be made out of elastomer and could be included in the flexible region of the display cover layer.
This means that whenever the cover layer that protects the display of the upcoming foldable iPhone gets affected by dents and scratches, the self-healing process is expected to start and fix the damage without any external intervention from the user. In case some kind of external application is needed, the self-healing process might be initiated by “externally applied heat, light, electric current,” or any other type of external stimulus, says the report.

As mentioned above, the display cover layer may even use heat as a stimulus for the self-healing process. The special layer might be used to generate heat from user input (touch and other gestures) which will depend on “a predetermined schedule, or when the electronic device is charging.” Moreover, Apple might also include a transparent dielectric layer which will contain multiple slits. to increase the flexibility of the display cover layer.