Thermal invisibility lets heat flow around but not through an area

BBC : Invisibility cloaks have already been designed to be undetectable by specific wavelengths of light and sound , and now there is a similar device for heat. Robert Schittny of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and his colleagues have used copper and PDMS, a silicon-based material, to create a pattern of thermally conducting and insulating rings that leaves a 5-cm disk at its center untouched by heat. Heat entering the pattern takes the paths of least resistance, following the rings of high thermal conductivity, avoiding the rings of low conductivity, and passing around the central disk before exiting the pattern. To mask the fact that the heat is being diverted, the rings are further designed to compensate for the extra distance the heat has to travel so that the distribution of the heat and temperature on the far side of the pattern matches what would have been there if there were no pattern in the material. Schittny suggests that the technique could be useful in electronics where thermal energy needs to be directed to or away from specific areas.