Cloak-Like Invisibility Cloak Created

Guest_Jim_* - March 27, 2013 01:02PM in Science & Technology

Thanks to the creation of metamaterials, the concept of an invisibility cloak is becoming real, but not as a cloak. The idea of a flowing sheet that can drape over and hide an object is beyond what a typical metamaterial can do. As reported by the Institute of Physics, researchers have successfully created a metascreen which is cable of covering and obscuring an object from sight, assuming you see microwaves.

Like skinning a cat, there are multiple ways to make an object invisible, and while metamaterials redirect light around an object, preventing it from reflecting off any surfaces, the metascreen instead cancels out what light is reflected. Dubbed 'mantle cloaking' this method is similar to the plasmonic cloaking the same researchers demonstrated last year, but that used bulky metamaterials. The mantle in this case is a 100 micrometer thick polycarbonate film with 66 micrometer thick copper tape on it, forming a fishnet pattern.

The current metascreen works in the microwave region of the spectrum, and was best able to hide an 18 cm rod at 3.6 GHz. The researchers believe they will be able to create a version that operates in the visible region of the spectrum, but it may only be able to hide objects micrometers in size due to how efficiency scales with wavelength.

Source: Institute of Physics