Designing fibers for an invisibility cloak
AUG 30, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024628
New Scientist : Researchers may be coming closer to designing a real invisibility cloak. Among the many groups developing the necessary optical metamaterials are Alessandro Tuniz at the University of Sydney’s Institute of Photonics and Optical Science in Australia and colleagues, whose results appear in Optics Express . They have been perfecting a method to make thin, flexible threads whose components are smaller than the wavelength of light by heating standard glass rods and metal tubes, then drawing the assembly into a long thin fiber. So far, they have produced threads 10 μm thick, but are working to make them even thinner. According to the group’s computer simulations, at only 1 μm thick, the fiber’s optical properties would depend on wavelengthâmdash;the thread would be invisible if seen in red light, but visible in green light.
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
