Invisibility
Invisibility has been a staple of science fiction, (and my own personal fantasies), for decades and in recent years we’ve watched as fiction edges ever closer to reality through the use of metamaterials. The problem with most of the devices currently being researched however, is that since they totally encompass the object being rendered invisible, they are also rendered blind as well, which kind of defeats the purpose. But a team from Hong Kong’s University of Science and Technology believes they have come up with an answer to this problem and that it is indeed possible to create a cloaking device that would be able to render an object invisible without encompassing it. Read More
Development in metamaterials - the so called “left handed” composite materials that negatively refract light waves and promise the sci-fi scenario of rendering objects invisible - is accelerating with news this week of two breakthroughs from scientists at the University of California, Berkeley. Read More
June 16, 2008 Research into the cloaking properties of “left handed” metamaterials is continuing, with the latest news coming from scientists at the Polytechnic University of Valencia who have proven that these man-made substance can make objects impervious to sound waves. A proposed "acoustic cloak" would use sonic crystals, a class of metamaterial, to bend sound waves around an object, and could be used to render vessels Sonar-invisible... perhaps even bring to life that staple of spy technology: the Cone of Silence. Read More
August 20, 2007 When you’re reporting about new technologies, it’s easy to get carried away with excitement over a breakthrough, particularly when sensationalist press releases are involved. This appears to have happened with Duke University’s somewhat misleading 2006 release announcing “the first demonstration of a working invisibility cloak – and a competing press conference is being called to contest the press releases' claims and demonstrate a 13-year-old technology that’s much closer to delivering optical invisibility. Read More
October 20, 2006 A team led by scientists at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering has demonstrated the first working "invisibility cloak." Now before you get all excited about the prospects of playing the invisible man or Harry Potter, it’s not a Dr Zhivago sort of cloak but an electromagnetic radiation cloaking device and we’re many years from being able to turn an object or person invisible to the naked eye. The cloak deflects microwave beams so they flow around a "hidden" object inside with little distortion, making it appear almost as if nothing were there at all. Cloaks that render objects essentially invisible to microwaves could have a variety of wireless communications or radar applications, according to the researchers. Watch the video. Read More
