A breakthrough in creating invisibility cloaks, stealth technology

Scientists have managed to create artificial nanostructures that can do the job, called metamaterials. But the challenge has been making enough of the material to turn science fiction into a practical reality.

The work of Debashis Chanda at the University of Central Florida, however, may have just cracked that barrier. The cover story in the March edition of the journal Advanced Optical Materials, explains how Chanda and fellow optical and nanotech experts were able to develop a larger swath of multilayer 3-D metamaterial operating in the visible spectral range. They accomplished this feat by using nanotransfer printing, which can potentially be engineered to modify surrounding refractive index needed for controlling propagation of light.

A breakthrough in creating invisibility cloaks, stealth technology

"Such large-area fabrication of metamaterials following a simple printing technique will enable realization of novel devices based on engineered optical responses at the nanoscale," said Chanda, an assistant professor at UCF.

The nanotransfer printing technique creates metal/dielectric composite films, which are stacked together in a 3-D architecture with nanoscale patterns for operation in the visible spectral range. Control of electromagnetic resonances over the 3-D space by structural manipulation allows precise control over propagation of light. Following this technique, larger pieces of this special material can be created, which were previously limited to micron-scale size.

I thought this was worth a share.

It appears as if scientists have found a way to potentially create cloaking devices, by stacking together artificial nanostructures, otherwise known as metamaterials.

It seems as if they still have a way to go, but they seem to be making good headway nonetheless.

Daas.

reply to post by daaskapital

Great.
Soon we will have cops wearing invisibility cloaks roaming around shooting dogs and beating people to death.

There's no telling all the places we're going to go with these invisibility cloaks. Be sure to turn off your cell phones when you dress up as a ghost and crash various parties.

butcherguy
reply to post by daaskapital

 

Great.
Soon we will have cops wearing invisibility cloaks roaming around shooting dogs and beating people to death.

Where? Gotham city ?


Great tech could be deployed in a number of military platforms

reply to post by daaskapital


I've seriously given invisibility some deep thought in the past and I've come up with two theories on how I would invent such a thing.

1) Create a material or floating shield that "bends light" around you therefore no light particles reflect back to an observer and giving the optical illusion that you are not there.

2) With Nanotech you would have to have both the observer and the hider wearing nano-tech body suits because the hider's nano-tech gown would have to be able to receive a signal from the observer's perspective so that the nano-particles can suitably change their colors & patterns to match whatever the hider is in front of. This would not be possible without some sort of transmitted image of the hider from the observer's perspective.

Personally I prefer idea #1.

Congrats on the invention of invisibility, you can add it to levitating frogs & transporting atomical structures. Too bad scientists can only practice these Superman feats on a small scale.

TritonTaranis

butcherguy
reply to post by daaskapital

 

Great.
Soon we will have cops wearing invisibility cloaks roaming around shooting dogs and beating people to death.

Where? Gotham city ?


Great tech could be deployed in a number of military platforms

Yeah... what was I possibly thinking?

Our government would never use such tech against it own citizens.

They don't spy on us either.....

Very cool , especially since that was my old alumni.
I got to work on some very cool projects sponsored by the military on my senior engineering year more than a decade ago.

If I recall correctly the CREOL laser center at the time was its number one money maker even more so than the football team. The downfall was the amount of foreign teachers teaching senior level courses in engineering, which were hard to understand as English was not their first language. The rumor was the CREOL and engineering department were hiring professors doing top level R&D but as part of their agreement they had to teach classes.

This reminds me of the invisible soldier video: www.youtube.com...

Translation: the espionage industry has just upped its game!

Just remember, people, if you can buy it in a store, chances are, it's already been rendered obsolete and replaced in a secret laboratory somewhere. By the time anything this dangerous or useful gets to us, its next-generation counterpart is already in the hands of the government.

reply to post by daaskapital


Funny how video games and movies have items with a "nano" or "meta" in them, like this tech already exists and is used in future sci fi things to get us warmed up.
Firepiston

Meta Materials are old news.... the problem is actually that they can't make a material that is responsive to all frequencies of light at once.... they can say make a meta-material that is invisible at one wavelength but then it becomes more viable in other wavelengths...

I read the article and I didn't see anything new...

Perhaps I missed something??

Peace,

Korg.

Yeah the breakthrough will be that they extended the reach into the near infrared or bordering the visible red spectrum, I read the article and was presented with very little information.

There is still a long way to go, and achieving wide band spectrum, from infrared right through to UV is the real goal here, which is not what is reported. Still everyone pounces on it like invisible tanks are already rolling off of the production line.


Also, the invisible soldier video? You know how video compression works right? key frames? saving only changes? fast movement?

The article has no pictures of this said cloak material.

So they are telling us, they can make the stuff to do the job even have enough for practical applications but we get no pictures of this cloak? Sounds odd to me.

Korg Trinity
Meta Materials are old news.... the problem is actually that they can't make a material that is responsive to all frequencies of light at once.... they can say make a meta-material that is invisible at one wavelength but then it becomes more viable in other wavelengths...

I read the article and I didn't see anything new...

Perhaps I missed something??

Peace,

Korg.

they can achieve better than a single wavelength.

Imagine a sphere that filtered out a particular EM frequency. Inside this sphere, you filter another. So on and so forth. Obviously, there is an upper limit to how many spheres can be nested within a nano sized structure. However, that is the basis for the Stealth coating.

I have heard from a couple of unrelated folks (corroboration) that the spherules are manufactured in space in a relatively simple process, but still expensive given the costs of payload, etc (tens of thousands per gallon). Take that with the same grain of salt as any other claim. But i fully believe it.

it is mostly wishful thinking. I was getting rather sick with the amount of times I would read the lines, or a reporter saying "The invisibility cloak like that in harry potter is a step closer to reality"

Then when the actual scientist comes in to explain it they essentially say "We managed to bend microwaves around a small object using metamaterials" Then they show a huge lab bench with a setup and supporting hardware.

Which is quite realistically a step forward in the right direction, but we are still MILES off of making anything remotely usable.

Secondly, Harry Potter? Look Mr/Mrs reporter, there are many better films that show invisibility cloak technology at least you can catch your audience off guard and say the name of a movie that idiots of today don't actually know... I know no one likes a hipster, but come on.

As much as I get excieted at the idea of a cloaking device for its awesome factor, it's hard to imagine how it will be put to use in ways that aren't harmful. Maybe it can be used to hide utilities like radio masts from a city sky line? That seems like a matter of taste and I'm not sure I can get behind even that. Maybe there're applications in opticts and photography.

Tearman
As much as I get excieted at the idea of a cloaking device for its awesome factor, it's hard to imagine how it will be put to use in ways that aren't harmful. Maybe it can be used to hide utilities like radio masts from a city sky line? That seems like a matter of taste and I'm not sure I can get behind even that. Maybe there're applications in opticts and photography.

edit on 31-3-2014 by Tearman because: (no reason given)

edit on 31-3-2014 by Tearman because: (no reason given)

I don't even want to think about what would happen if the NSA and Homeland Security ever got their hands on something like that.

Gads...what a nightmare...

bigfatfurrytexan

I have heard from a couple of unrelated folks (corroboration) that the spherules are manufactured in space in a relatively simple process, but still expensive given the costs of payload, etc (tens of thousands per gallon). Take that with the same grain of salt as any other claim. But i fully believe it.

so that's what the x-47b is doing?

mbkennel

bigfatfurrytexan

I have heard from a couple of unrelated folks (corroboration) that the spherules are manufactured in space in a relatively simple process, but still expensive given the costs of payload, etc (tens of thousands per gallon). Take that with the same grain of salt as any other claim. But i fully believe it.

so that's what the x-47b is doing?

My understanding was that heavy lift operations would conduct "black" launches independantly of the shuttle.