Invisibility Cloak will Soon Become a Real Thing

Great news for all Harry Potter fans out there! An invisibility cloak is currently being developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It may just be better than magic, because science is making it a reality.

The team at Berkeley was able to create a miniature sized device that forms to an object, making it invisible in certain wavelengths of light. Although it can only cover extremely small objects, about 1,500 microns in size, the researchers are planning to create a larger invisibility cloak in the future.

This is a significant accomplishment, as the previous attempt at the project ultimately resulted in an extremely large version of the cloak that took a massive amount of material to produce. Moreover, it failed to make an object completely invisible to the naked eye, as the contours of the shape were still visible.

How this invisibility cloak works

This new “metamaterial” is only able to cover cells at the moment. It also has to be formed to the particular object that it’s concealing because of the nature of the material. To conceal an object, scientists use tiny antennas and mini blocks made of gold to scatter the light hitting an item so that its surface appears flat, rather than multi-dimensional.

The problem, as previously mentioned, is that the invisibility cloak can only cover what it was specifically created for. It can essentially serve as a camouflage for one particular area at a particular light wavelength. In order to produce a larger version of the cloak, scientists would first need to modify the material.

WHAT WOULD THE CLOAK BE USED FOR?

There are many practical applications for this technology once it is fully developed. It could, for example, be used to create an illusion or a multidimensional image out of a two dimensional one. Moreover, due to its ability to make an item appear differently from what it actually is, the material could be use in the military.