mudslag Posted May 19, 2011 Share Posted May 19, 2011 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110518085200.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher "Seeing something invisible with your own eyes is an exciting experience," say Joachim Fischer and Tolga Ergin. For about one year, both physicists and members of the team of Professor Martin Wegener at KIT's Center for Functional Nanostructures (CFN) have worked on refining the structure of the Karlsruhe invisibility cloak to such an extent that it is also effective in the visible spectral range. In invisibility cloaks, light waves are guided by the material such that they leave the invisibility cloak again as if they had never been in contact with the object to be disguised. Consequently, the object is invisible to the observer. The exotic optical properties of the camouflaging material are calculated using complex mathematical tools. These properties result from a special structuring of the material. It has to be smaller than the wavelength of the light that is to be deflected. For example, the relatively large radio or radar waves require a material "that can be produced using nail scissors," says Wegener. At wavelengths visible to the human eye, materials have to be structured in the nanometer range. The minute invisibility cloak produced by Fischer and Ergin is smaller than the diameter of a human hair. It makes the curvature of a metal mirror appear flat, as a result of which an object hidden underneath becomes invisible. The metamaterial placed on top of this curvature looks like a stack of wood, but consists of plastic and air. These "logs" have precisely defined thicknesses in the range of 100 nm. Light waves that are normally deflected by the curvature are influenced and guided by these logs such that the reflected light corresponds to that of a flat mirror. "If we would succeed again in halving the log distance of the invisibility cloak, we would obtain cloaking for the complete visible light spectrum," says Fischer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xendrome Posted May 19, 2011 Share Posted May 19, 2011 "Seeing something invisible with your own eyes is an exciting experience," Best choice of a word right there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manish Posted May 19, 2011 Share Posted May 19, 2011 Meh. Not a proper invisibility cloak until it works for the complete visible light spectrum. With this tool, they then succeeded in refining the metamaterial by a factor of two and in producing the first 3-D invisibility cloak for non-polarized visible light in the range of 700 nm. This corresponds to the red color. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unix2 Posted May 19, 2011 Share Posted May 19, 2011 This will be cool if you are going to enemy territory in a war or if you want to kill a dictator from these countries. Imagine a soldier or a special agent with the ability to be invisible and kill Hugo Chavez. :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kreuger Posted May 19, 2011 Share Posted May 19, 2011 So basically it's an optical illusion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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