Apple [AAPL] has filed another patent that reveals they have worked, or are working on, a new scratch resistant stainless steel. The patent was filed this April just gone and describes a method to protect stainless steel from regular wear and tear.
To make the metal scratch resistant, the process requires a high temperature nitrogen-based salt bath where it shots for an hour and a half. What this does is ads a coating to the metal that protects it from being scratched. The extra layer added measures about 15 – 30 microns in thickness. The outer appearance of the metal is left the same.
Perhaps this method will be used on the next gen iPhone antenna. If Apple decide to keep the steel band around the iPhone, they’ll need to have some sort of fix in place to prevent signal loss which has caused some problems for some users. Perhaps the extra coating prevents parts of the antenna from being shorted together.
As with all patents, some make it and some just get filed away and never touched again. We don’t yet know where this one will fall but look out for it in the next gen iPad (back) and the iPhone antenna.
Via: Geeky Gadgets and Mac Rumors
If was to be possible, it would from the help of the team at NANOVEA. The experts in the field along with many other surface measurements at the nano through macro level .