If the cloak, which is now on the microscopic level, were big enough, “You could cover a tank with it and make it look like a bicycle”, said Zhang.
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Working with brick-like blocks of gold nanoantennas, the researchers from the US Department of Energy (DOE)’s Berkeley Lab and University of California (UC)-Berkeley “fashioned a “skin” cloak barely 80 nanometers in thickness. It is easy to design and implement, and is potentially scalable for hiding macroscopic objects”.
It is the scattering of light – be it visible, infrared or X-ray – from its interaction with matter that enables us to detect and observe objects.
Zhang’s cloak is in contrast completely microscopic in size and has succeeded so far in concealing only tiny objects.
(Right): (From left) Yuan Wang, Zi Jing Wong and Xiang Zhang have devised an ultra-thin invisibility “skin” cloak that can conform to the shape of an object and hide it from detection with visible light. These components have features that are much smaller in size than that of the wavelength of light; and that allows them to physically re-route the light waves coming in. Since the light is close to the mirror-like surface, it is possible that both the container and the objects within will become undetectable as long as the so-called “metasurface” is correctly designed.
There are a number of limitations to this invisibility cloak.
The new and enhanced invisibility wrap is protected with nano antennas created of small gold pieces of different dimensions that can affect these light distortion and making them seem to a viewer like the waves are arriving from a smooth area.
It has led to the development of an ultra-thin “invisibility cloak” with layers of thousands of nanoscale dots that would change “reflected light” to make anything under the cloak look flat, according to The Guardian.
Of course, if you were to make a hypothetical mask out of this metamaterial, it would only work for one individual’s face, and against a predetermined background, Zhang said.
It is interesting to know that the cloak is able to function on its own and requires no power source or camouflage, earlier technique used for invisibility purposes.
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What made this newly discovered invisibility cloak from its previous models is the mechanism that scientists used to scatter the incoming light by using ultrathin meta-materials.
