A Harry Potter-style invisibility cloak is one more step closer to reality thanks to the work of a research team at the FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics (AMOLF) in the Netherlands, which has successfully harnessed the magnetic field of light to develop meta-materials that can deflect light in every possible direction.
Metamaterials are a broad class of materials which have been specifically engineered to exhibit peculiar properties, particularly with regard to how light behaves when traveling in them: metamaterials with negative refractive indexes could even reflect light so to make entire objects invisible, and scientists have been making progress towards an invisibility cloak that, a few years back, belonged more to the pages of a fantasy novel than to those of a scientific paper. There’s certainly still a long road ahead, but continous advancements have consistently made this dream less and less laughable in the recent past.
As with all electromagnetic waves, light has two oscillating components, an electrical and a magnetic one, meaning that — theoretically — both electricity and magnetism can be used to control how it propagates within an object. However, atoms in standard materials interact only weakly with magnetic fields oscillating over 500THz. Because visible light ranges approximately from 400THz to 800THz, this means we simply can’t hope to exploit magnetism here to help us in our quest for invisibility.
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
- 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