What is Dichroic Glass?

Dichroic glass (also known as Dichro) is a multi-colored glass with reflective properties. Dichroic glass is available in several textures including smooth, ripple, fibroid, and granite.

Dichroic glass is produced by stacking layers of glass and micro-layers of Quartz Crystal and Metal Oxides (which are vaporized in a vacuum chamber and then applied to the surface of the glass in multiple layers) to create decorative glass with shifting color structures. The glass can have as many as 30 layers of this coating, yet the total glass/coating is extremely thin.

Generally, dichroic glass has two very distinct colors; transmitted and reflected. The "transmitted color" is the color we see when we gaze through a clear piece of dichroic glass. The "reflected color" is the color we see in a clear or opaque piece of dichroic glass when light bounces off of the surface of the glass.

For example, a "Blue/Gold" coating on the clear glass will transmit blue and reflect gold. However, when black or opaque glass is coated with the same “Blue/Gold”, you will only see the reflected shade of Gold with very subtle hints of blue when the glass is held at a 45% angle. In some cases,

the glass is coated with multiple shades referred to as a “rainbow” or “mixture” coating. The rainbow coating applies to the rainbow shades that are deposited on the glass in graduated stripes, whereas the mixture coating has multiple layers of the same rainbow colors.