About | Gallery Locations | The Dichroic Process | Kroma Outlet |
Y is more than a crooked letter.
Dichroic coatings are produced on a variety of glass materials. Originally developed as interference filters in scientific measuring and correction applications, they are a product of the technology called "thin film physics".
The coatings are quite thin, about 700 angstroms thick, and are generally constructed of silicon and titanium oxides evenly shuffled into multiple layers. These layers are applied by vacuum deposition and cause the glass to become a partial mirror by allowing only a select narrow band of light to transmit; other rays are rejected through reflection and absorption.
As the light rays transmit through the glass at a right angle they are less effected by refraction than when passing at an extreme off axis angle where they have to travel a greater distance through the coated material. This greater distance causes a shift of color and when dichroic glass is viewed at even slightly different angles, you will see differing colors.
The visible spectrum can be identified in basic colors as Additive and Subtractive:
| Dichroic Glass | Transmits | Reflects |
| Additive Colors | Red | Aqua |
| Green | Pink | |
| Blue | Gold | |
| Subtractive Colors | Magenta | Green |
| Yellow | Blue | |
| Cyan | Red |
 | On the left is a stained glass window with the image of a landscape being transmitted. The color of the land is magenta and the sky is cyan. On the right, the color of the land, in the same window, is reflecting green and the sky is red. Magenta is made up of red and blue rays; or minus green. To pass the cool cyan sky we reflected the hot red colors. | 
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