MetaMaterials

The idea of invisibility has fascinated people for millennia and has been an inspiration or ingredient of myths, novels and films, from the Greek legend of Perseus versus Medusa to H.G. Well’s Invisible Man. Dr. Ulf Leonhardt at Scotland’s St. Andrews University has recently published two papers concerning the potential realization of invisibility using modern MetaMaterials.

DARPA states that “MetaMaterials are a new class of ordered nanocomposites that exhibit exceptional properties not readily observed in nature. These properties arise from qualitatively new response functions that are: (1) not observed in the constituent materials and (2) result from the inclusion of artificially fabricated, extrinsic, low dimensional inhomogeneities.”

According to Dr. Leonhardt, the key to achieving invisibility lies in creating transparent materials capable of bending light around objects hidden behind them. While seemingly far-fetched, light-bending phenomena such as hot road mirages or water refractions occur naturally. Leonhardt claims that these phenomena are possible “because light will always take the shortest route, which is not always a straight line. All you need is a transparent material that bends light around an object like water moving around a stone.”

Theoretically, MetaMaterials created using nanotechnology, which is a necessary tool due to the small scale of light waves, will soon channel waves of specific frequencies. Leonhardt claims that “there will be advances on both the technological and theoretical sides which will make invisibility happen in the not too distant future. This is not completely beyond the range of present technology and theoretical ideas.”

Contact: Dr. Ulf Leonhardt, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, UK.