subject: Cloak Invisibility [print this page] The cloak of invisibility has played and still plays an important part of fiction movies and books. Scientists from all around the world have been challenged by the idea of how to become invisible. Several attempts have been made but with no real success. Now researchers have discovered how to turn this dream into reality.
German researchers that work at Karlsruhe Institute have declared that they are able to cloak a tiny bump in a layer of gold. Using this discovery its detection at nearly visible infrared frequencies was prevented. This device also works in three dimensions. Tolga Ergin, the lead researcher, stated that the previous cloaks only worked in two dimensions.
The cloak device is made out of a structure of crystals that have air spaces in between, like a woodpile, and it can bend the light or in this case it can hide the bump in the gold layer.
The bump was extremely tiny in this case. It was a mere 0.00004 inches high and had 0.00005 inches across. In order to see it, a magnifying glass was needed. Researchers who developed it say that it is completely scalable and that it has no limit. Hiding something large is not feasible to do using this process because it would take a very long time.
At Duke University scientists have discovered in the past a way to cloak objects in two dimensions using microwaves. Microwaves have the tendency to bounce off objects, these become invisible and so a shadow that can be detected is created, exactly like radar waves and light. The research team from Germany used infrared waves. These waves are much closer to the spectrum of light. Special materials deflect radar light or other waves around an object like water flowing around a smooth rock in a stream.
