One team has already made a cat ‘disappear’ with a device that has huge military potential
Mainland scientists are increasingly confident of developing the world’s first invisibility cloak, using technology to hide objects from view and make them “disappear”.
The central government has funded at least 40 research teams over the past three years to develop the idea, which until now has largely been the stuff of science fiction and fantasy novels like the Harry Potter series.
The technology would have obvious military uses such as developing stealth aircraft, but Beijing believes the research could lead to wider technological breakthroughs with broader uses, scientists involved in the research said. The teams involved include researchers at Tsinghua University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The main approaches are developing materials that guide light away from an object, creating electromagnetic fields to bend light away from what one is trying to hide and copying nature to make hi-tech camouflage materials.
A team led by Professor Chen Hongsheng at Zhejiang University released a video last month demonstrating a device that made fish invisible. The same technology also apparently made a cat “disappear”. The device was made of a hexagonal array of glass-like panels, which obscure the object from view by bending light around it.
Other mainland teams have made similar breakthroughs.
Many other top universities and research institutes are also involved in invisibility studies in China. They include Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing Institute of Technology, Xian Jiaotong University, Harbin Institute of Technology, Tsinghua University and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.
Some researchers declined SCMP’s request for an interview due to the military sensitivity of their research.
A team at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, for instance, was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China to develop “full invisibility” technology and material for hypersonic jets similar to NASA’s X-43A scramjet.
The hypersonic vehicle could be used to delivered nuclear warheads around the globe with speed at least five times faster than sound.
“We are invisible people studying invisible technology,” said a researcher involved in the project.
Professor Ma Yungui, an optical engineering specialist at Zhejiang University, said his team would soon announce their latest finding: a device that stops objects being detected by heat sensors or metal detectors.
Ma’s device is as large as a matchbox, but it could be increased in size to allow weapons to pass through security checkpoints. Another potential application is to stop agents or troops moving at night being caught by infrared cameras.
“Many people have asked me if the technology can be applied on fighter jets so they can get heat-seeking missiles off their tail. Well, we may work on that,” he said.
Ma said a useable and practical invisibility cloak might still be decades away as it needed super-materials that could not be produced with current technology, but the central government was still pouring funds into research because the theoretical knowledge gained could produce many potential spin-offs.
The Latest on: Invisibility cloak
[google_news title=”” keyword=”Invisibility cloak” num_posts=”10″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
via Google News
The Latest on: Invisibility cloak
- Scientists solved the 70-year-old mystery of an insect's invisibility coat that can manipulate lighton May 4, 2024 at 2:51 am
We tend to think of invisibility cloaks as science fiction. But one group of scientists has taken a big step toward making them a reality. For the first time, scientists at Pennsylvania State ...
- MIT Technology Reviewon April 22, 2024 at 4:59 pm
Precancerous colon cells turn on a gene that helps them evade the immune system until they develop into tumors. One of the immune system’s roles is to detect and kill cells that have acquired ...
- Realization of an ideal omnidirectional invisibility cloak in free spaceon April 22, 2024 at 10:00 am
A team led by Prof. Dexin Ye and Prof. Hongsheng Chen from Zhejiang University, and Prof. Yu Luo from Nanyang Technological University conducted research on the practical implementation of ...
- Startup Selling Invisibility Shieldson April 21, 2024 at 5:00 pm
The largest version is a whopping six feet tall, large enough to "hide multiple people standing side by side," per the company's Kickstarter page — and it just might be as close to a Harry ...
- Realization of an ideal omnidirectional cloak in free spaceon April 19, 2024 at 9:49 am
The past decade has witnessed the rapid development of transformation optics, through which various novel optical devices such as invisibility cloaks, electromagnetic illusion devices and ...
- Helping Lone Workers Shed the Invisibility Cloakon April 15, 2024 at 5:00 pm
Many people might wish they had their own invisibility cloaks from time to time. But there is one group of people who would like to get rid of theirs. They are lone workers, whose jobs take them ...
- Scientists solved the 70-year-old mystery of an insect's invisibility coat that can manipulate lighton April 15, 2024 at 10:12 am
We tend to think of invisibility cloaks as science fiction. But one group of scientists has taken a big step toward making them a reality. For the first time, scientists at Pennsylvania State ...
- Scientists solved the 70-year-old mystery of an insect's invisibility coat that can manipulate lighton April 14, 2024 at 5:00 pm
They hope their brochosomes will one day be used for invisible cloaking devices and other technologies. We tend to think of invisibility cloaks as science fiction. But one group of scientists has ...
- Backyard insect inspires invisibility devices, next gen techon March 18, 2024 at 6:24 am
Perhaps someday people could develop a thermal invisibility cloak based on the tricks used by leafhoppers. Our work shows how understanding nature can help us develop modern technologies.” ...
via Bing News