Tiny "invisibility cloak" is like a magic
|
|
| Audience/Grade: | College Freshman-Continuing Education |
| Discipline(s): |
MEMS/NEMS Materials Engineering Nanotechnology |
| Special Topic(s): | |
| Learning Resource Type: |
Community - Blog |
| Media Type: |
Unknown |
| Author(s): |
Organization:Berkeley Lab and World Science Staff |
| Description: | "Researchers have created a tiny "carpet cloak" that conceals objects under it from detection using light near the human-visible part of the spectrum. While the carpet itself is visible, the bulge of the object underneath it "disappears" from the view of instruments that use this near-infrared light. These three images depict how light striking an object covered with the carpet cloak acts as if there were no object. (Image by Thomas Zentgraf) Researchers say they're hopeful that with more precise fabrication their strategy should yield a true "invisibility carpet that works in the area of the color spectrum utilized by human eyes, and at a larger size. The carpet works such that shining a beam of light on the bulge shows a reflection identical to that of a beam reflected from a flat surface. "We have come up with a new solution to the problem of invisibility based on the use of dielectric [nonconducting] materials, said Xiang Zhang of the Univers ity of California Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, leader of the research team." Image caption: These three images depict how light striking an object covered with the carpet cloak acts as if there were no object. (Image by Thomas Zentgraf) |
| Rating: |
|
| Related Resources | |
| Keywords: | nanotechnology ivisibility cloak SINAM |
| References: |
Center for Scalable and Integrated Nanomanufacturing (SINAM) |
| Usage Tip | |
| Use of Resource: |
Fascinating new research with wide implications: A carefully designed pattern of holes ? each 110 millionths of a millimeter wide ? perforates the silicon, transforming the slab into a metamaterial that forces light to bend like water flowing around a rock. In the experiments reported in Nature Materials, the cloak was used to cover an area that measured about 3.8 thousanths of a millimeter by one-tenth as much. |
| Difficulty: |
Medium |
| Interactivity Level: |
Low |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | May 2009 |
| Platform/Format: |
WWW |
| Cost: |
Free |
| Download URL: | http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090504_carpet.htm |
| Metadata: |
IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
SINAM
NEEDS
|
