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

Isn't this overkill?

[madbox]

I mean, Aquaman is enough of a badass already, isn't he?

Re:What is so great about the invisibility cloak?

[mysidia]

Your average slashdot reader is:

• A Harry Potter fan, and sees how useful an invisibility cloak can be in certain situations.
• A star trek fan
• An aspiring Klingon, knows the language, can't make surprise attacks without a cloak shield
• A Linux user
• A user of whole-drive disk encryption
• Has a UPS, lots of batteries, or other form of backup power
• In need of a cloaking device, for that one last piece of the security puzzle (keeping the machine safe from physical hackers)

Re:What is so great about the invisibility cloak?

[Nadaka]

Bah. thats just security through obscurity.

Re:Liquid Invisibility Cloak?

[Darinbob]

If I want to be invisible, I walk into a singles bar full of women and announce that I'm available. Suddenly no one can see me.