Advertisment

Inching closer to Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak

author-image
CIOL Writers
New Update
Cloak e

Who wouldn’t want Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak from J.K Rowling’s bestseller? The Good news is that we are stepping closer to a similar thing in real life. In a breakthrough, researchers at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) made an object disappear by using a material with nano-size particles that can enhance specific properties on the object's surface.

Advertisment

The scientists demonstrated for the first time a practical cloaking device that allows curved surfaces to appear flat to electromagnetic waves. And though Harry Potter’s cloak might take some more time to become reality, this practical demonstration could result in a step-change in how antennas are tethered to their platform. It could allow for antennas of varied shapes and sizes to be attached in difficult places and a wide variety of materials.

"The design is based on transformation optics, a concept behind the idea of the invisibility cloak," said study co-author professor Yang Hao. Previous research has shown this technique working at one frequency."However, we can demonstrate that it works at a greater range of frequencies making it more useful for other engineering applications, such as nano-antennas and the aerospace industry," Hao noted.

According to the researchers, the underlying design approach has much wider applications, ranging from microwave to optics for the control of any kind of electromagnetic surface waves.

"The manipulation of surface waves is the key to developing technological and industrial solutions in the design of real-life platforms, for different application fields," added first author Dr. Luigi La Spada.