Angel Aura Quartz is a quartz crystal known for its ethereal, rainbow-like iridescence. This stunning appearance is not natural; it is a human-enhanced material created by bonding natural clear quartz with precious metals. This process permanently fuses the metal atoms to the stone’s surface, transforming its look and resulting in brilliant, shifting colors.
Selecting and Preparing the Quartz Base
The production process begins with selecting high-quality, natural quartz crystals, often clear rock crystal. The base material must be structurally sound and free of significant fractures, as flaws can cause the crystal to break during heat treatment. Before enhancement, the quartz undergoes cleaning to ensure the surface is free of dirt, oils, or residue. This preparation often involves ultrasonic cleaning or chemical washes to create an immaculate surface for the metal to bond to. The cleaned quartz is then placed into a specialized vacuum chamber.
The Vacuum Vapor Deposition Process
The creation of Angel Aura Quartz uses vacuum vapor deposition, a technique that creates a durable, molecular bond between the quartz and the coating metals. The quartz is sealed inside the chamber, and the air is evacuated to achieve a high vacuum environment. This vacuum prevents chemical reactions or oxidation that would interfere with the bonding process.
Next, the chamber is heated to high temperatures, typically ranging from \(800^\circ\text{C}\) to \(871^\circ\text{C}\) (\(1600^\circ\text{F}\)). The heat prepares the quartz surface, making it receptive to the metal atoms that will form the iridescent layer. Once the temperature stabilizes, the metal source material is introduced into the chamber. This material, which includes pure silver and platinum, is vaporized into a gaseous plasma state.
The vaporized metal atoms are drawn to the heated quartz surface within the vacuum. Through electrostatic attraction and the high energy environment, the metal atoms bond to the quartz structure at a molecular level. This fusion creates a coating that is chemically inseparable from the base crystal. The process is monitored precisely to control the thickness of the deposited film, which achieves the desired optical effect.
How the Aura Color is Formed
The characteristic shimmering color of Angel Aura Quartz is not due to pigment but is an optical phenomenon called thin-film interference. The metal layer created through vapor deposition is microscopically thin, often only a few nanometers thick. This translucent coating acts like a prism, causing light to interact with both its top and bottom surfaces simultaneously.
As white light strikes the thin film, some waves reflect off the outer surface, while others penetrate and reflect off the quartz boundary beneath. These two sets of reflected waves interfere with each other, either amplifying or canceling out specific wavelengths of light. The result is the iridescent sheen that shifts as the viewing angle moves. The specific metals used—primarily platinum and silver, sometimes with trace amounts of gold—are responsible for the pale, opalescent hues.