Chemical strengthening behavior of a glass substrate having locally different thickness

Abstract

To understand the effect of chemical strengthening process on irregular geometry, a partially thinned glass substrate was strengthened according to the ion-exchange conditions, and the strengthening properties and the dimensional changes of the partially thinned glass were analyzed using a surface stress meter and a 3-dimensional analyzer. The results revealed that the compressive stress (CS) measured at a thin area of the glass substrate having different thicknesses was affected by the CS of a thick zone, and consequentially the CS of the thin zone was bigger than that measured at a same thickness glass. It was also found that the dimensional changes across the thin zone after chemical strengthening were relatively big, and as a result, it caused a physical deformation on the thin area due to the interference in the thick area.