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Quantum Cloaking Makes Molecules Invisible
KentuckyFC writes "An international team of physicists has applied the ideas of cloaking to the quantum world and worked out how to hide quantum objects such as molecules. In the quantum world, seeing is equivalent to detecting a quantum object. In the case of molecules, that means looking for the terahertz radiation they produce when they vibrate (abstract). By designing a 'quantum corral,' an elliptical nanostructures that absorbs terahertz waves at a precise frequency, the team says it is possible to hide molecules that emit at exactly that frequency. They say their quantum corral would be ideally suited to detecting molecules of specific species while ignoring others. And that may mean a new generation of molecular detectors on the horizon."
By designing a 'quantum corral,' an elliptical nanostructures that absorbs terahertz waves at a precise frequency
Sounds sort of like how the human ear works.
The theoreticians seem have thrown down a considerable challenge here. Designing and building will likely be very different things. Makes most of the stuff fabricated so far seem almost macro-scale.
Isn't it a bit naughty to include star-trek tags on a real-science piece (even if it IS distinctly theoretical)?
This drab technology is no more amazing than the "cloaking" technology that hides copper in infrared. Its ridiculous technology like this that becomes tomorrow's practical application, somehow somewhere.
Who the hell would have thought shooting light in a beam would be so useful?
Putting something where it can't be seen is not the same as making it invisible. Making it unable to be seen at a particular frequency does not mean it can't interact with something else, for instance gravitationally with the 'corral'. That would make it detected.
If the above were not so, all your friends who didn't happen to be within eyesight would be invisible. Nothing wrong with that as long as you're willing to accept the notion that just because your friends are invisible doesn't mean they're imaginary.
At best, in complete isolation, the molecule would be both visible and invisible. It would be in Schroedinger's cat box.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
No, that was hideously visible. If it were invisible, that would be creepy, but seeing that guy's very much opaque intestines is worse.