The “gem” stones in this unique jewelry are composed of many small pieces of Dichroic and Art or Cathedral glass fused in a furnace at over 1200 degrees. Most pieces are created individually and are truly one of a kind.

Dichroic is a Greek word – “Di” meaning two and “Chroic” meaning color. This refers to the glass/metal composite's ability to refract light in different wavelengths (colors) depending on the angle at which it is viewed. Essentially, a less than micron thick film of metal bonded to the surface of a glass sheet. This wondrous material behaves optically much like opal creating a nugget that throws off a wide range of shifting colors. Depending on the metal selected and the color of glass, the possible color range is almost infinite.

The Dichroic glass material is a spin-off of a very high tech process perfected in the U. S. space program and utilized to create the visors on the space helmet protecting our astronauts from solar radiation. In the case of the visors, they utilize pure gold, coating a globe of perfect optical glass. The coating process is very complex in which small sheets of glass are suspended in a vacuum furnace, the furnace is warmed to about 300 degrees and a crucible of the selected metal oxide is instantly vaporized by a high intensity electron beam gun. In the near perfect vacuum, the resulting finely dispersed fog is evenly distributed throughout the interior of the furnace, coating all surfaces including the glass with a sub-micron layer of metal. The resulting coated glass is both reflective and transparent. This technology is currently used in many fields creating such diverse products as lighting reflectors, micro circuitry and…mirrored sunglasses.