Under the microscope, opals reveal a hidden world of nanoscale spheres that bend light into brilliant color. It’s not pigment—it’s physics.

Here’s how it works. A gem of a meteorite found in Antarctica is studded with pieces of opal, a crystal that is associated with water. The discovery lends greater strength to the idea that ...

Using ink made from synthetic photonic crystals and a printer that can modulate voltage, the team has figured out how to print shimmering, color-changing patterns onto a stretch of flexible opal.

Colloidal self-assembly has been investigated as a promising and practical approach for the fabrication of photonic nanostructures, including colloidal crystals, composite and inverse opals ...

Three-dimensional photonic crystals enable the controlled design ... We present a silk inverse opal that demonstrates a pseudo-photonic bandgap in the visible spectrum and show its associated ...

After dropping an earthy renovation of Merrell’s Hydro Moc this summer, LA-based label Advisory Board Crystals (Abc.) has returned with its newest footwear offering: an opal gemstone-filled ...

The world’s finest uncut opal, a 998-gram gem called the Fire of Australia, has gone on permanent public display for the first time since its discovery more than 60 years ago. Valued at more ...