Pleochroism

Double refractive gemstones are able to split the white

light entering it into two separate rays which are polarized
at right angles to each other.
Insome colour doubly refracting stones these two rays may
emerge differing in shade or colour. When this happens the
rays are said to have experienced “ Differential selective
absorption”.
This effect is called “Pleochroism”
Uniaxial – two colours – Dichroic
Biaxial – three colours – Trichroic
Thisfeature is used to identify isotropic stones from
anisotropic stones.
Intrichroic gemstone is viewed along different
direction, a third colour will replace one of the other
two when the stone is reoriented
Calcite Dichroscope
• consists of a cleavage rhomb of optical quality
calcite
• Thegemstone under test is positioned so that
white light passes through the stone and
enters the dichroscope aperture.
• If
the gemstone is doubly refracting, the two
polarized rays of light emerging from it are
separated by the strong double refraction of
the calcite rhomb and presented to the
eyepiece as side-by-side images of the
aperture.
• When checking a stone for pleochroism, it is
important that the gem is viewed in several
positions.
• Because through the optic axis of the stone
can see only one colour
Polarizing filter type dichroscope
 Contain two polarizing filters for the observation (rotating one of these
pieces through 90° into the crossed position)
One of the disadvantages of the polarizing filter type
dichroscope is that it splits the image of the gemstone
between the two sections of filter.
The calcite rhomb version, produces two images of the
same field of view.