Fiction into fact as US team cracks secret of invisibility

Published on Sunday 10 August 2008 22:29

SCIENTISTS have stumbled on a material that could turn science fiction into reality – a material that makes objects invisible.

Ever since the author HG Wells' novella of 1897, The Invisible Man, the story of a scientist rendered invisible by a potion, researchers have been intrigued by the notion of invisibility.

Now scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have engineered a material that for the first time can bend light around three dimensional objects making them "disappear."

The research – funded by the American military – paves the way for stealth tanks, aircraft and even warships that can disappear from enemy soldiers' sight.

The new system works like water flowing around a rock, the researchers said.

Because light is not absorbed or reflected by the object, a person only sees the light from behind it – rendering the object invisible.

Scientists artificially engineered "fishnet" materials that had "negative refractive" properties.

Xiang Zhang, the lead researcher, said: "In the case of invisibility cloaks or shields the material would need to curve light waves completely around the object like a river around a rock."

The team's work follows an earlier project at Imperial College, London, that achieved similar results with microwaves.

Like light, these are a form of electromagnetic radiation but their longer wavelength makes them far easier to manipulate. Achieving the same effect with visible light is a big advance, the researchers said.