Will We Ever Have Invisible Cloaks?

The invisibility cloak. It is the type of fabric that I would not mind to own! Imagine all the possibilities: spying on people or sneaking up on a friend for a hilarious youtube video! But there is more than just spying with this tech. It has possible applications for pilots or medical practice. But the real question is, will we ever get this technology?

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What should we do to become invisible? Some technicalities

If someone becomes invisible, he/she would become transparent or “see through”. In other words, it means that light from behind you would be projected in front of you and vice versa at all angles. We would need technology that could bend light around your body or just project the light in front of you. Now this (bending of light) sounds like something you would find in science fiction, but believe me it actually not that far out of our reach as one would think. There are several techniques that we can use with technology that we posses today, to achieve our goal.

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Using the Mirage effect.

Some of the ways to bend light we can find in Nature. This light bending phenomena we call a Mirage. Have you ever seen that weird wet looking effect on the hot, sun baked, roads or sand? That effect is what we call the Mirage effect. Now the sun bakes a surface until it is hot enough to heat the air just above it. This will cause that the air Higher above to be cooler than the air just above the surface. Now in this given circumstances light will refract upwards (Please note that this is not reflection!). This refraction upwards make it appear that the light shining above is being reflected to the viewers view, making it look like water reflecting light!

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Scientists at the University of Dallas have used this mirage effect to their advantage. They stacked thin carbon nanotubes that are excellent conductors of electricity side by side together to make a little barrier for objects to hide. They placed these tubes in a water tank and conducted electricity through these tubes to heat up. The immediately surrounding water also heated up. This gives a pathway for the mirage effect to happen. This effect makes an object hidden behind the nanotubes to disappear.

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Are you disappointed? it is probably not ideal to wear a suit made of super Hot material, whilst suspended in water! But do not fret, there are other ways of getting invisible!

Using Metamaterial

Metamaterial is material is human engineered to have strange properties. They can be made from all sorts of materials, from plastic to metal. It usually consists of small structures that is packed in a pattern. Some of these materials can bend or manipulate sound or even electromagnetic waves! Those small structures on the material need to be smaller in length than the wavelength of the wave it wants to manipulate. One of these metamaterials can be used to guide light from your back to the front of your body. In real life researchers have successfully cloaked objects in radar radio waves! Of Course we humans do not see radio waves, but this shows that we could also potentially do this with visible light!

Metamaterials cloaking radio waves. Image Credit

The only big problem would be how small these structures on the material should be. Visible light has a very small wavelength compared to that of a radio wave. Even Red color, the biggest wavelength of visible light, is tiny compared to radio waves. The other problem is that these materials only work good with 2D fields. Full 3D wave scanners and objects have not been tested yet, but can give a big problem! But fear not, there is more ways that we can cloak objects!

Cloaking by projection.

This technique is really just for static objects! In the new Star Trek movie, Star Trek Beyond, you can see this cloaking Technique. With this technique one projects the image on the back of an object on the side of the viewer. This gives an illusion of invisibility. We already can see this type of illusion with a data projector monitor or television screen. The problem comes in with the viewer’s viewing angle. If you want to hide an object like an ugly garbage bin in front of a wall, then this would be a good solution! You could also project things outside your car on the inside of your car to give the illusion of projection. This is once again limited to our mapping technology. If the viewer moves his head the illusion loses its magic.

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What will cloaks be used for?

One might think think that cloaking devices only have applications for the spy or military business. But There is more practical uses that could save lives! One of those applications would be gloves cloak the doctors hands. This would not allow any obstructions in the surgeon's field of view when busy with meticulous surgery. Pilots can use this technology by making the floor go invisible when landing. This would help them to land with more precision.

This technology will change the way we live and how we drive. It may not be perfect now, but can only improve!

What do you think? What would you do with an invisible cloak? let me know in the comments below! Upvote and follow me if you liked what you read!

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Some good Reads

Mirrage effect:

meta meterial:

Projection:

Applications for invisibility cloak:

how it would work:

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