Now you see me, now you dont!

It was all over my RSS feeds yesterday. Scientists have the theoretical basis to create cloaking devices that can make an object invisible, using the laws of electromagnetic waves and refractions, and a lot of nanotecnology to create metamaterials that should be able to bend these waves around the object, making it invisible to the eye.

Visible light normally bounces off an object’s surface making it visible to the human eye. But John Pendry and colleagues at Imperial College London, UK, have calculated that materials engineered to have abnormal optical properties, known as metamaterials, could make light pass around an object as so it appears as if it were not there at all.

Metamaterials are metal and electronic composites that can be engineered to precisely control the way light travels through them. They do this by influencing the relationship between an electric field, a magnetic field and the direction of light. - more

For now, they have only been able to make metamaterials that work with radar and microwaves. But they’re working on the visible spectrum. The problem is the materials needed seem to be too nano for it to be profitable.

Metamaterials that control visible light are particularly elusive in large part because the required matrix of metal loops and wires must be “nanosize,” or exceptionally small. - more

So far, they are looking for practical application for warcraft airplanes, and specifially for radar invisibility. But they seem hopeful that they can actually create a cloak for a person to sue and hide, much like Harry Potter does in the books.

Science Fiction? Not any more it seems.