Construct · 1 fields · 2 citations

play-of-color: a standalone construct

One name. One construct. A landmark on the map.

● anchor · one construct, one field Nearest construct by meaning·not indexed
play-of-color1 CONSTRUCTPlay-of-colourSANDERS · DIFFRACTION

A single standalone construct; nearby constructs are located against it in the Collider. Tap a field for its definition, unit, and measures.

Gemology

Opal's flashing spectral colours

Play-of-colour is the hallmark of precious opal: patches of pure spectral colour that flash and change as the stone or the light moves. Sanders's 1964 Colour of precious opal showed the cause: opal is built from a regular three-dimensional stack of uniform silica spheres, and this lattice diffracts light like a natural grating, so the sphere spacing sets which colours appear and the regularity sets how vivid they are. The construct is diffraction colour from an ordered microstructure, distinct from the milky scattering called opalescence and from pigment colour; the size and order of the sphere array decide the hues and their brilliance.[1][2]

Unit
The spectral colours diffracted by the stone and the angles at which they flash
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Related to the diameter and ordering of the silica-sphere lattice, which set the diffracted wavelengths and their vividness

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Nearby constructs

opalescence2 fields · 3 citationsinvariant · one construct, two systemsiridescence3 fields · 5 citationsinvariant · one construct, three systemsasterism1 fields · 2 citationsanchor · a standalone construct

References

  1. Sanders, J. V. (1964). Colour of precious opal. Nature, 204(4964), 1151–1153. https://doi.org/10.1038/2041151a0
  2. Read, P. G. (2005). Gemmology (3rd ed.). Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann. ISBN 9780750664493

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