Once thought of as the province of only "Star Trek" or "Harry Potter," cloaking technologies could become a reality with a specially designed material that can mask itself from other forms of light when it is hit with a "beam of invisibility," according to a new study. Theoretically, most "invisibility cloaks" would work by smoothly guiding light waves around objects so the waves ripple along their original trajectories as if nothing were there to obstruct them. Previous work found that cloaking devices that redirect other kinds of waves, such as sound waves, are possible as well. But the new study's researchers, from at the Technical University of Vienna, have developed a different strategy to render an object invisible — using a beam of invisibility. Complex materials such as sugar cubes are opaque because their disorderly structures scatter light around inside them multiple times, said study senior author Stefan Rotter, a the...
Comments
Post a Comment