Calling Klingons and Romulans, Cloaking Now Available (Sort of)
posted by Deven Desai
According to the BBC, “Scientists have succeeded in “cloaking” an object perfectly for the first time, rendering a centimetre-scale cylinder invisible to microwaves.” OK this method works only for microwaves, works only in one direction, and not for visible light. Nonetheless, “The design principles that make the cloak work in microwaves would be difficult to implement at optical wavelengths. But microwaves are important in many applications, principally telecommunications and radar, and improved versions of cloaking could vastly improve microwave performance.”
The advance is cool to me in that the ideas started in 2006 from a paper on “transformation optics.” with an implementation of the idea coming that year as well. So the science fiction world of true cloaking is not here, but the fact that a few folks did some basics science, a test application followed fast, and now a full version of the microwave idea is in place within seven years is rather great. The practical side of the work may mean that funds are coming quickly from industry and the government. I am not sure which. Still I love the idea that one of the oldest fantasy/sci-fi bits of magic, invisibility, is a little closer to reality.
November 16, 2012 at 6:33 pm
Posted in: Innovation, Technology
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