Making a Liquid Invisibility Cloak

Researchers at Fudan University in Shanghai, China are proposing a method which could lead to the first soft, tunable metamaterial, the key ingredient in building an invisibility device. "The fluid proposed by Ji-Ping Huang of Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and colleagues, contains magnetite balls 10 nanometers in diameter, coated with a 5-nanometer-thick layer of silver, possibly with polymer chains attached to keep them from clumping. In the absence of a magnetic field, such nanoparticles would simply float around in the water, but if a field were introduced, the particles would self-assemble into chains whose lengths depend on the strength of the field, and which can also attract one another to form thicker columns. The chains and columns would lie along the direction of the magnetic field. If they were oriented vertically in a pool of water, light striking the surface would refract negatively – bent in way that no natural material can manage."

Comments

What is so great about the invisibility cloak?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand all these invisibility cloak stories on Slashdot over the years. Is it rooted in some fantasy about being invisible in the girl's locker room?

Re:What is so great about the invisibility cloak?

[jellomizer]

Um no you are a sick mind... It is for the Woman's locker room.

Re:Let's get this over with...

[lorenlal]

Apparently you saw right through that one.

Invisibility?

[electricbern]

I'll believe it when I see it.

Re:anonymous coward

[Red Flayer]

We need some disambiguation, though. My "magic stick" seems to be very different than your "magic stick". Yours is likely black or silver; mine varies from light tan/pink to purplish. I'm sure there are other differences as well.

As a matter of fact, my "magic stick" is superior to yours, since I can cede control of it to my wife and still watch MST3K marathons.