Two teams of researchers, at the University of California at Berkeley and at Cornell University in New York, have designed “invisibility mats” that visually hide the presence of any object that is placed under them.
The mats, unveiled publicly last week at the International Conference on Quantum Electronics in the United States, have been made with silicon nanostructures that make any lump created by an object hidden underneath disappear from view, so that it appears to be surface always appears flat . Specifically, during the UC Berkeley experiments, the mat was used to cover a tiny area measuring 3.8 microns by 400 nanometers. And it was possible to generate the invisibility effect for different angles of incidence of light. Due to its design and dielectric composition, researcher Xiang Zhang assures that the mat is relatively easy to manufacture and could be available in large sizes.
The new technology represents a great step towards transformation optics . In addition to direct applications for hiding objects from view, and even rendering certain installations invisible to satellites, it opens the door to manipulating light to create more powerful microscopes and faster computers.
