About Dichroic Glass

Dichroic is defined in the dictionary as “The property of a surface of reflecting light of one colour and transmitting light of other colours.” Transmitted colours are what you see when you would look through a piece of Dichroic glass. Reflected colours are the colours you see when you hold the glass at an angle, and will be the opposite colour of the transmission.

Dichroic coatings are produced by vacuum depositing multiple thin layers of exotic materials onto a glass substrate. This creates an optical filter that can selectively reflect and transmit wavelengths of light. A vacuum chamber is needed in order to produce a pure environment for depositing the thin film materials. The vacuum produced is similar to that of outer space. The proprietary evaporants are vaporized in a crucible located in the bottom of the vacuum chamber, by a high voltage electron beam onto the rotating glass above. The glass is also rotated in the chamber through this vaporization process in order to deposit uniform coatings on the glass. Due to the difficult coating process there can be slight differences in color throughout the sheet, or from one sheet to the next.