A lot of people complain about their gadgets getting scratched every now and then, and it is the same story with iPods, cell phones, PDAs and the like. There are many protective covers available for most products, but it looks like Nokia is trying to reinvent the concept. The Finish house, in fact, is developing a new coating for cell phones made with diamond-like material.

The manufacturing process is not that simple, check out the description: “To make the material electric current is fed through coal graphite. This creates plasma, which is directed towards a plastic casing by high-voltage electrodes. The coal ions penetrate the surface and bond to form an amorphous, diamond-like coating less than 100 nanometres thick. The process works at room temperature, meaning even cheap plastics can be coated this way.”

The new protective case has many benefits, it is conductive and anti-static for example, making sure that it will not get covered with dust. It is also environment-friendly (the material is biodegradable) and it should offer a much higher protection for a reduced cost.

There is an interesting link to the patent application (click here) where you can see more details about the invention. The patent description is as follows: “The invention relates to a cover, a mobile communications apparatus and a method for producing a coated cover for an electronic apparatus. According to the invention at least a part of the cover is coated with a DLC-coating, also called an amorphous diamond coating.”

Via: NewScientist Tech