Invisibility Cloak Hides Objects with Slimmer Design

Scientists may have developed a new design for a cloaking device that overcomes some of the limitations of existing invisibility cloaks. They've created a thin cloaking device that does not alter the brightness of light around a hidden object.

"Invisibility may seem like magic at first, but its underlying concepts are familiar to everyone," said Boubacar Kante, one of the researchers, in a news release. "All it requires is a clever manipulation of our perception. Full invisibility still seems beyond reach today, but it might become a reality in the near future thanks to recent progress in cloaking devices."

Cloaks are devices that cover objects to make them appear invisible. The general idea behind these devices is to change the scattering of electromagnetic waves such as light and radar. This can cause and object to be less detectable to these wave frequencies.

"Previous cloaking studies needed many layers of materials to hide an object, the cloak ended up being much thicker than the size of the object being covered," said Li-Yi Hsu, one of the researchers. "In this study, we show that we can use a thin single-layer sheet for cloaking."

In this latest cloaking experiment, the scientists designed a "carpet" cloak. This works by cloaking an object sitting on top of a flat surface. The cloak makes the whole system-object and surface-appear flat by mimicking the reflection of light off of the flat surface. Any object reflects light differently from a flat surface but when the object is covered by the cloak, light from different points is reflected out of sync; this effectively cancels the overall distortion of light caused by the object's shape.

More specifically, the researchers used Computer-Aided Design software with electromagnetic simulation to design and optimize the cloak. The cloak itself was modeled as a thin matrix of Teflon.

The latest efforts could be important for the future of invisibility cloaks. Not only can the researchers make objects invisible, but they can change the way light waves are being reflected at will.

The findings are published in the journal Progress in Electromagnetics Research.

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