Invisibility cloak moving closer into view?

The new cloak with the bump, left, and the prototype, right.

(Credit: Duke University)

That cloaking device we've been dreaming of appears to be one step closer to actual cloakdom, so start pondering the mischievous possibilities.

Scientists from Duke University have improved on their earlier efforts at producing an invisibility cloak, coming up with a new type of device they say is significantly more sophisticated at cloaking an object (and eventually a person?) from visible light.

The device is made from a light-bending composite material that can detour electromagnetic waves around an object and reconnect them on the other side. That creates an effect similar to a distant mirage you'd see hovering above a road on a hot day.

In Duke's latest experiments, a beam of microwaves aimed through the cloaking device at a "bump" on a flat mirror surface bounced off the surface at the same angle, as if the bump wasn't there. Additionally, the device prevented the formation of scattered beams that would normally be expected from such a perturbation. (The team details its findings in far more technical terms than I ever could in the latest issue of Science magazine.)

"In effect, we are creating an engineered mirage with this latest cloak design," said David Smith, an engineering professor at Duke.

(Credit: Duke University)

"The difference between the original device and the latest model is like night and day," said David R. Smith, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke, and the senior member of the research team. "The new device can cloak a much wider spectrum of waves--nearly limitless--and will scale far more easily to infrared and visible light. The approach we used should help us expand and improve our abilities to cloak different types of waves."

The newest cloak measures 20 inches by 4 inches and is less than an inch high. It's composed of thousands of individual pieces of so-called metamaterials, made of the fiberglass material used in circuit boards and etched with copper.

It took nine days to get the latest device from conception to fabrication, compared with the four months it took to create the original device. Suddenly, we're imagining cloak companies springing up everywhere.

Smith envisions many possible applications for the devices. By eliminating obstructions, they could improve wireless communications, he said, or acoustic cloaks could serve as protective shields, preventing the penetration of vibrations, sound, or seismic waves.

Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley have conducted similar research into redirecting light around 3D objects. Please note: no Harry Potter references were used in the writing of this post.

[jhvipond]

No H.G. Wells references, either ?

[Seanathome]

Or Harry Potter as well? ;)

[NewsReader_]

The Klingons already have this technology :-)

[quasi42vt]

Yah, they got it from the Romulans sometime after the Federation stole it from them but refused to use it. Ain't we just the honorable ones? Steal a new technology but not use it. The future has hope for us. :D

[ssmiroldo]

Can't tell anything from the photos... Is there a before/after in there somewhere? If not, why?

I want to see it.... or rather, not see it! ;-)

[Seaspray0]

It becomes invisible when you blink or look away from the picture. See it?

[tekwiz4u]

Um...I still see it. Back to the drawing board i guess.

[timber2005]

I think you might have missed the part about not working on the visiable light range yet. So... trade in those human eyes for microwave vision!

[duggerdm]

I have never seen such an obvious effort at disinformation distribution, unless this is just another incredibly badly written article on CNET.

The obvious purpose of such a disinformation story would be to say the US has an invisibility technology being developed very rapidly and at a prototype level soon??? to be ready for field application. It offers a meaningless and logically amorphous visual image (photos) to create 'reality' and focus, including 'reality' supportive dimensions which are unnecessary since the photo offers other scaling devices. Nothing in the story is cohesive, analytically detailed enough to be informative, or to be sufficient enough for verifiable substance. I note that energy input levels necessary to create such necessary light bending effects are conveniently left out for example.

The purpose of such a story could be to: throw off technical competition (corporate or international), but more likely to make our enemies think that they may be dealing with (observed or attacked by) invisible enemies and thereby induce high levels of insecurity and or paranoia - all of which confounds their ability to focus on their primary hostile actions. Or again it could just be an incredibly badly written article.

[assman]

HOLY ****, you are one paranoid schizophrenic motherf**ker. It's just a brief article describing the latest developments with the project, not some technical paper being published in a science journal. You are looking wayyy too far into the intentions of this article. I don't even know how to respond to what you just said, it's simply idiotic to a profound degree.

OMG IT MUST BE A CONSPIRACY!!!

[Sporlo]

..........................................

w
t
f
?
?
?
It informed people of something going on. NOTHING MORE.................

[WhiteJediGuy]

They must have blinked and thought it disappeared for the brief... 1/4 of a second. :P

[pebear]

Ok it was not the Klingon's it was the Romulan's that perfected the cloaking device. The device was banned by the federation so no federation vessels could use it.

[assman]

Did no one read the f**king article? It says the current device is designed for cloaking MICROWAVES. They believe it can be modified at a later point to stretch its electromagnetic response to the visible range. Until it works with visible light, you won't be able to see it in action except in graphs and computer readouts.

Reading comprehension fail.

[t8]

I have one that works with visible light. You can buy it from me. Of course you can't see it.

[Sporlo]

Why don't articles like these get into the top column more often?

[t8]

I never saw that tech coming.

[Sam Papelbon]

they should make silverware out of this stuff, then you can leave it on the plate when you nuke your leftovers

[rshelton3000]

This is quite cool actually. If they could get the range up to infrared they could use it to keep things cool in direct sunlight or, if up to UV then night vision would be ineffective against something cloaked with the material (just a thought).

I am quite glad there were no Parry Hotter references. Thank you.

[knowles2]

Cool, I know the British navy has plans to implement this technology in a vessel in the next fifteen years, this came out in a article on the bbc or somewhere on net, it was from one of the royal naval college top engineers. I be surprise if the us and British military are not ahead in this area and are all ready got devices working on the visible light frequency in a lab or in the field.

[Kurt_TZ_Fluscher]

i agree knowles2 -- the giant swept wing- triangular ufo's that cruise slowly and almost silently that people have reported seeing and filming in arizona,texas and ohio might use cloaking. The u.s. military has been studying blimps and stealth technology as a way to silently drop small units and equipment behind enemy lines at night. Some witnesses have reported the bottom of the ufo' s as "shimmering" and just vanishing. This sounds to me like the military all ready has the technology , used so they can fly this stealth blimp during the day. They might use the technology that came out a few years back -beam an image onto the object (blimps bottom) of whats behind the object (stars or blue sky) -makes it look invisible.