Interesting stuff. We’ll see how this develops over the years, and I could see some really interesting applications of technologies like this in the security industry. Imagine having a uniform that you could wear, that would be made of this kind of material? Although I imagine it would be some heavy material to wear as a uniform. But for vehicles and equipment, this could be pretty cool. –Head Jundi
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Invisibility cloak one step closer, scientists say
Sun Aug 10, 2008 6:54pm EDT
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have created two new types of materials that can bend light the wrong way, creating the first step toward an invisibility cloaking device.
One approach uses a type of fishnet of metal layers to reverse the direction of light, while another uses tiny silver wires, both at the nanoscale level.
Both are so-called metamaterials — artificially engineered structures that have properties not seen in nature, such as negative refractive index.
The two teams were working separately under the direction of Xiang Zhang of the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center at the University of California, Berkeley with U.S. government funding. One team reported its findings in the journal Science and the other in the journal Nature.