[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Berkley Lab and the University of California Berkley have developed an ultra-thin cloak material that can effectively render an object invisible. A test conducted by the team was able to successfully “cloak” an object approximately the size of several biological cells. “This is the first time a 3D object of arbitrary shape has been cloaked from visible light,” said Xiang Zhang. Below, members of the cloak team, (From left) Yuan Wang, Zi Jing Wong and Xiang Zhang. Image Courtesy of Kerley Labs, Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt.
The cloak is composed of gold nanoantennas, is 80 nanometers thick, and can be turned on or off by changing the polarity of the nanoantennas. So far the joint venture has only be able to produce a microscopic version of the material. The researchers involved in the project believe that eventually the technology may capable of being up scaled to enable them to create a larger cloak out of the material.
As part of the Berkeley study, a red light was directed at the “cloaked” object and reflected off of it in a similar fashion as it would off a flat mirror. The “invisibility cloak” effectively manipulates the interaction between light and metamaterials.
A video showing the invisibility cloak in action has been made available, courtesy of the Berkeley Lab. According to Xiang Zhang, director of Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division, it may take 5 to 10 years to make this technology available for practical use.
This project is an example of how Sci-Fi franchises, like Star Trek, are capable of and have inspired scientific breakthroughs. Cloaking devices in Trek work a bit differently than what the researchers at Berkeley are experimenting with.
In Trek cloaking fields are generated using the ships deflector dish. As with the cloaking technology in Star Trek; it all has to start somewhere and the team at Berkeley have started along a path to some potentially even more exciting breakthroughs.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which is managed by the University of California Berkeley on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, was founded in 1931 and has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes.
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS FIRST GENERATION CLOAK, IS IT SOMETHING WORTH PURSUING?
WRITTEN BY MICHAEL KOGER | VENETHUS
EDITED BY CALLIB CARVER | KRAZIYK - CALLIB.CARVER@UFPLANETS.COM
