Opal miners in South Australia's north say the sale of synthetic opals is crippling the industry. Opal miner James Mougris says cheap synthetic opals are keeping the price of genuine stones down. He ...

Opals have a unique property: Their color comes not from pigment, but from their internal molecular structure, which is organized in such a way that it reflects certain wavelengths of light. This ...

Opal industry groups say high-quality synthetic opals are threatening to undermine the industry. Fake opals are allowed to be sold in Australia as long as they are clearly identified as synthetic. But ...

A material that can readily switch between a rainbow of colours has cleared a key hurdle to commercialisation, according to a group of entrepreneurial chemists. The developers of 'photonic ink' (P-Ink ...

Opals have a unique property: Their color comes not from pigment, but from their internal molecular structure, which is organized in such a way that it reflects certain wavelengths of light. This ...