What is Dichroic Glass?
For over a decade there has been a growing interest in dichroic glass. What is it, how is it made and where did it come from? If you are new to dichroic glass, you are in for a real treat as you discover the fire and multicolored brilliance of dichroic glass that has been artistically transformed into wearable art. Dichroic (pronounced dye-crow-ick) glass, commonly called dichro for short, literally means ”two colored” and is derived from the Greek words ”di” for two, and ”chroma” for color. It was thus named because of its fantastic multi-colored and reflective properties. When you look at this glass, it appears to have more than one color at the same time, especially when viewed at different angles. This reflective phenomenon is known as thin-film physics, which is also why you see swirling rainbow patterns in a soap bubble, floating colors from oil on water and the dramatic colors of dragonfly wings. Dichroic glass is not reflective because of special glass or textures. Instea
TOP Dichroic Glass with its amazing color and depth, is one of the hottest materials being used by glass artists today. Dichroic glass is glass that has been coated with thin layers of metallic oxides in a high temperature, vacuum furnace. It is characterized by having more than one color when viewed from different angles. Dichroic coatings transmit certain wavelengths of light, while reflecting others creating an effect similar to the iridescence found in dragonfly wings and peacock feathers.
Fused Glass… …simply refers to the process of using a programmable kiln to partially melt pieces of specially-formulated art glass into one new, unified piece of glass. Color patterns & designs developed by the fusing artist are retained by carefully controlling the kiln firing schedule. Many glass fusers use dichroic, iridescent, transparent, and opaque glasses that have a COE (coefficient of expansion) of 90. Not to bore you with too many technical details, but this simply means that the various pieces of glass fused together have to be compatible in their rate of heat expansion and cooling contraction. Otherwise, the resulting fused glass piece can later exhibit stress fractures — sometimes weeks or months later! My glass fusing “set-ups” are typically hand-cut and pieced together much like a vertical mosaic layering process. I also use a band saw for more intricate cuts, or for cuts on multi-layer thicknesses of fused glass. Each glass item on this web site is kiln-fired over
Dichroic Glass is a multi-layer coating placed on glass by using a highly technical vacuum deposition process. Quartz Crystal and Metal Oxides are vaporised onto the surface of the glass in the form of a crystal structure. Dichroic Colours have as many as 30 layers of these materials yet the thickness of the total coating is approximately 35 millionths of an inch. The coating that is created is very similar to a gemstone and by careful control in thickness, different colours are obtained. Thus, all dichroic coatings are created using the same exact materials. Originally created for the Aerospace industry, Dichroic Glass is now made available to the artist community by Warm Glass UK in association with ‘Coatings by Sandberg’ (CBS). The main characteristic of Dichroic Glass is that it has a transmitted colour (where light passes through the glass) and a completely different reflective colour (where light reflects off the glass). Furthermore, these two colours shift depending on angle
Dichroic glass is a high-tech spin-off of the space industry. Thin layers of metallic oxides, such as titanium, quartz crystals, and magnesium, to name a few, are deposited upon the surface of glass in a high temperature, vacuum furnace. The oxides are vaporized by an electron beam. The resulting color is determined by the individual oxide compositions. The dichroic coating transmits light while reflecting others. It produces an interference-effect similar to the iridescences found in nature, such as fire opals, dragonfly wings and hummingbird feathers. When dichroic coated glass is fused or hot worked, the color will permanently shift toward the next color above it. Color shift is dependent on temperature, exposure time and number of reheats necessary to finish the piece. The amount of shift must experimentally be determined by the artist working with it. The brilliance, depth, and interaction of color as light reflects off the glass is remarkable, and a bit difficult to catch with a
