Dichroic Coated Glass and Bronze Sculptures

Each one of my glass sculptures are coated with multiple ultra-thin layers of different metals (gold, silver), metal oxides (titanium, chromium, aluminum, zirconium, magnesium) and silica.  These raw materials are vaporized by an electron beam in a vacuum chamber.  The vapour then condenses on the surface of the glass in the form of a crystal structure. This is sometimes followed by a protective layer of quartz crystal. The finished glass can have as many as 30 to 50 layers of these materials yet the thickness of the total coating is approximately 30 to 35 millionths of an inch (about 760 to 890 nm). The coating that is created is very similar to a gemstone and, by careful control of thickness, different colors are obtained.

Each glass sculpture is framed in master crafted elegant modern solid brushed aluminum metal frames for a commanding and lasting presentation.  In some of my most recent glass sculpted work I have sculpted bronzed components to present the glass. Please see "Flight into the Sun" on this page.

Dichroism has two related but distinct meanings in optics. A dichroic material is either one which causes visible light to be split up into distinct beams of different wavelengths (colors) (not to be confused with dispersion), or one in which light rays having different polarizations are absorbed by different amounts.

The original meaning of dichroic, from the Greek dikhroos, two-colored, refers to any optical device which can split a beam of light into two beams with differing wavelengths. Such devices include mirrors and filters, usually treated with optical coatings, which are designed to reflect light over a certain range of wavelengths, and transmit light which is outside that range. An example is the dichroic prism, used in some camcorders, which uses several coatings to split light into red, green and blue components for recording on separate CCD arrays. This kind of dichroic device does not usually depend on the polarization of the light. The term dichromatic is also used in this sense.

The second meaning of dichroic refers to a material in which light in different polarization states travelling through it experience a varying absorption. The term came about because of early observations of the effect in crystals such as tourmaline. In these crystals, the strength of the dichroic effect varies strongly with the wavelength of the light, making them appear to have different colors when viewed with light having differing polarizations. This is more generally referred to as pleochroism, and the technique can be used in mineralogy to identify minerals. In some materials, such as herapathite (iodoquinine sulfate) or Polaroid sheets, the effect is not strongly dependent on wavelength, and so the term dichroic is something of a misnomer, but still used.