‘Metascreen’ Forms Ultra-Thin Invisibility Cloak
Up until now, the invisibility cloaks put forward by scientists have been fairly bulky contraptions - an obvious flaw for those interested in Harry Potter-style applications.
However, researchers from the US have now developed a cloak that is just micrometres thick and can hide three-dimensional objects from microwaves in their natural environment, in all directions and from all of the observers’ positions.Presenting their study today, 26 March, in the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society’s New Journal of Physics, the researchers, from the University of Texas at Austin, have used a new, ultrathin layer called a “metascreen”.
The metascreen cloak was made by attaching strips of 66 µm-thick copper tape to a 100 µm-thick, flexible polycarbonate film in a fishnet design. It was used to cloak an 18 cm cylindrical rod from microwaves and showed optimal functionality when the microwaves were at a frequency of 3.6 GHz and over a moderately broad bandwidth.
The researchers also predict that due to the inherent conformability of the metascreen and the robustness of the proposed cloaking technique, oddly shaped and asymmetrical objects can be cloaked with the same principles.