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A Step Towards an Invisibility Cloak

Posted by kdawson on from the who-goes-there dept.

An anonymous reader alerts us to work out of Purdue University in Indiana, where researchers have produced a design for a method of cloaking objects of any shape and size at a single wavelength of visible light. The math for such an invisibility effect was worked out last year at Duke and in the UK, but the new work, to be published in Nature Photonics this month, is the first practical design. The lead researcher, Vladimir Shalaev, notes that even though the current design works only at a single wavelength, and so would not convey true invisibility, it could still be useful — against, for example, night-vision goggles or laser target designators. Shalaev calls the technical challenge of producing an all-wavelengths cloak "doable in principle."

9 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Error Message by FooAtWFU · · Score: 5, Funny
    Never has this notice been more appropriate:

    Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
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    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  2. Meh by vertigoCiel · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wake me up when you've got an "invisibility" device that'll let me sneak into the girls locker room without getting seen.

    1. Re:Meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I think I have one, I've been invisible to girls for years.

  3. Laser sharks by unchiujar · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh noes, invisible sharks with lasers !!!

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    Shakespeare poems - infinite monkeys with infinite time.Computer tech support - a few trained ones working from 9 to 5.
  4. Re:Happy Harry by slashbob22 · · Score: 4, Funny

    You do know Harry Potter is a fictional character, right? Which is why he is invisible in the non-fictional wavelength.
    --
    Proof by very large bribes. QED.
  5. Re:In future... by tsajeff · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ahh yes, the Emperor's new clothing line.

  6. Precious, my precious by OldManAndTheC++ · · Score: 5, Funny

    According to TFA:

    Leonhardt, a professor of theoretical physics, wrote a commentary piece about the Purdue paper appearing in the same issue of Nature Photonics. In the commentary, he compares the Purdue design to the Roman creation of "the first optical metamaterial," a type of glass containing nanometer-scale particles of gold. In ordinary daylight, a cup made of the glass appeared green, but then it glowed ruby when illuminated from the inside.

    So basically, this will be made out of (a form of) gold, and encircle the object to be rendered invisible?

    I'm betting that, in order to work, it will need to be inscribed with the phrase: Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

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    1. Re:Precious, my precious by swillden · · Score: 4, Funny

      Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

      Please tell me you looked that up.

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  7. Re:*yawn* by BakaHoushi · · Score: 4, Funny

    Don't worry. We have the technology to prevent such abuse. Simply place an upside down basket on a stick, and place a dollar bill under it. If a record executive or a lawyer is hidden in a corner, they won't be able to resist and the basket will fall on them.