Scientists make further advances in cloaking technology

Scientists at Purdue University have made a breakthrough in cloaking technology, they've developed a new hyperlens device that can cloak objects up to 50 microns, about the size of a human hair, from a variety of wavelengths. It not only works better than previous designs that involve exotic metamaterials, it's also a lot cheaper. More info at DailyTech.

Vladimir Shalaev, Purdue University's Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, used it to cloak objects up to 50 microns -- the size of a human hair. The cloak consisted of two thin gold layers -- one flat, on bottom, and another on top of the cloaked object. The top layer was curved to act as a "hyperlense" an optical instrument with extraordinary capabilities.

Professor Shalaev describes the breakthrough, stating, "All previous attempts at optical cloaking have involved very complicated nanofabrication of metamaterials containing many elements, which makes it very difficult to cloak large objects. Here, we showed that if a waveguide is tapered properly it acts like a sophisticated nanostructured material. Instead of being reflected as normally would happen, the light flows around the object and shows up on the other side, like water flowing around a stone."