Dichroic glass is as beautiful as it is expensive.  The high cost is attributed to the high-tech vapor deposition process that is used to apply many crystalline films to glass.  The extremely bright and colorful dichroic surface is created by placing glass in an ultra-high vacuum chamber with crucibles containing such exotic dielectric materials as Titanium Oxide and Silicon Oxide.  The materials vaporize when heated, in some cases to over 3000ºC, with a high-voltage electron beam.  The vapors, which are similar to the steam produced by boiling water, travel easily through the mean free path caused by the vacuum and bond to the surface of the rotating glass suspended above.

The complex pattern in which the submicron thin layers of various oxides are deposited determines which wavelength of light will be modified.  Because the light is manipulated at the microscopic level in much the same manner that a prism creates rainbows, the colors are brilliantly pure.  The brightness of the colors is attributed to the fact that the coating does not absorb light like a piece of stained glass but instead almost all light is either transmitted or reflected.

Each coating produces three colors.  An even color coating is described by its dominant transmitted color, say magenta.  When the glass is turned to a 45º angle, a second (or shift) color, in this case yellow, is transmitted.  In reflected light such a piece of glass will have a silver-teal metallic sheen.  The standard transmitted colors are cyan, yellow, blue and magenta.  Red, orange, and green can be made but require at least twice the number of films, twice the work, and twice the price.