New technique proposed to make objects invisible

In recent years, invisibility has become an increasingly interesting area of ​​research due to advances in materials engineering. This research work of the UEx, published in Scientific Reports explored the electromagnetic properties of specific materials that can make certain objects invisible when they are introduced to the interior. Normally, we use artificial materials called metamaterials or materials with high dielectric or magnetic constant.

This idea to obtain invisibility using filler materials instead of outer layers was inspired by the final year project of Alberto Serna and Luis Molina, undergraduate students in telecommunications at the UEx. Serna explains: "Most techniques for developing invisibility cloaks exploit the extraordinary properties of certain materials in order to make sure that the light bypbades the object to make invisible." Nevertheless, this model can not be implemented with the help of loads, because the object is exposed to light and therefore forced to interact with it. "We used a different technique, plasmonic masking, which makes the object and the filling material jointly invisible," says Serna from Italy, where he is currently conducting a research stay.

This method allows to realize the invisibility of the interior. of an object without using any external device. In addition, the invisibility with the help of loads allows the object to interact with its environment without being hindered by external masking. The technique is valid for small objects and the resulting bandwidths are still narrow, but the investigators believe that the improvements to be made are promising.

Luis Landesa, who led this work, says that the idea of ​​fills opens the new range of applications. "The fact that an object can see the outside without being bothered by the outer layers is new and promising," he says. The researchers suggest applications ranging from non-solid materials to communications and bioengineering. A typical example of the utility of invisibility is the invisible microscopic probes that do not disturb the device to be measured. with the use of charges, moreover, the reading itself would not be changed, which is the problem posed by the invisibility cloaks.

Explore Further:
The new cloak of invisibility masks objects to human sight

More information:
Alberto Serna et al., Multilayer homogeneous dielectric charge for electromagnetic invisibility, Scientific Reports (2018). DOI: 10.1038 / s41598-018-32070-5