Invisibility Cloaking Takes a Big Stride At a Small Scale

jan_jes writes: Scientists have devised an ultra-thin invisibility "skin" cloak that can conform to the shape of an object and conceal it from detection with visible light. Although this cloak is only microscopic in size, the principles behind the technology should enable it to be scaled-up to conceal macroscopic items as well. The scientists used brick-like blocks of gold nanoantennas to form the 80-nanometer-thick cloak, which conformed to the arbitrary bumps and dents in the 1,300-square-micrometer sample object. The cloak, a metamaterial engineered to bend light in ways not seen in nature, was able to reflect red light as if it were bouncing off a flat mirror.

Comments

Unfortunately, immediately after they applied the

[mark_reh]

coating, they lost the prototype and it hasn't been seen since.