'Ultra-thin' invisibility cloak developed

The invisibility cloak may be getting closer to reality after researchers from the University of Texas, Austin developed an ultra-thin "metascreen" made of copper and polycarbonate film.

 

In their abstract, the researchers said the "ultralow-profile cloak" can provide "substantial camouflage" and "transparency" from incoming radio waves.

 

"Here, we realize and verify a mantle cloak for radio-waves. We report an extensive campaign of far- and near-field free-space measurements demonstrating that conformal cloaks can indeed produce strong scattering suppression in all directions and over a relatively broad bandwidth of operation," they said in their study published in the New Journal of Physics.

 

The researchers said the cloak may work optimally at 3.7 GHz over a moderately broad bandwidth.

 

But they said the size of the object that can be efficiently cloaked with this method "scales with the wavelength."

 

This means that when their method is applied to optical frequencies, "we may be able to efficiently stop the scattering of only micrometer-sized objects."

 

However, they hinted they are studying other "exciting cloaking applications" for small objects such as "non-invasive near-field imaging devices, optical nanotags and nanoswitches—as well improving the absorption efficiency of nanoparticles."

 

A separate report on tech site Mashable said the research, published in the New Journal of Physics, involves a cloak with 66 µm-thick copper tape and 100 µm-thick flexible polycarbonate film.

 

With the cloak, the researchers managed to shield an 18-cm cylindrical rod from microwaves.

 

"So there you have it: a cloak that shields objects from vision is a very real possibility, but in this case it would only work well on very small objects," Mashable said. — TJD, GMA News