Developed and used initially by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the 1950’s to produce state-of-the-art optical filters, to shield astronauts against cosmic radiation, dichroic glass has come along way since then. It can now be found as a form of jewelry, specifically, fused glass jewellery. But why use dichroic glass?

First, dichroic glass does not gels or any standard coloring agents to create color. The beautiful colors, as that of a prism, are created through the complex light interactions called "thin film physics". Something not found in normal glass.

Dichroic glass is made by carefully heating at high temperatures various metallic oxides like titanium or magnesium in a vacuum chamber until they are vaporized and deposited onto the surface of the glass. These metallic oxides have no natural
color themselves, it is the presence of the metallic oxides in the dichroic glass that causes different wavelengths of light to either reflect or transmit more than other glass. The type and the number of oxides used determines the order and number of layers and the pattern which will ultimately determine the final effect. With so many variables to play with, dichroic glass truly becomes an unbelievably varied palette for glass artists to work with. Jewelry designers and artisans who choose to work with the rich color palette of dichroic glass will be never regret doing so because the creative possibilities dichroic glass offers for fused glass art jewelry is limitless.

Next, using dichroic glass in jewelry brings on an extra sparkle, zing and intrigue to any jewelry piece. Since each piece of dichroic jewelry cannot be recreated it is special and unique and is an absolute original.