Your pervy, Harry Potter-fueled dreams are edging closer to reality, now British scientists have used metamaterials to bend light in a different manner to previous attempts. Now, it works with a greater range of colors.
Previous attempts at creating "invisible" materials have seen photonic metamaterials used to cloak an object, disguising it like "a carpet mirror," and then there was the Chinese team which used silver-plated nanoparticles suspended in water to render something "invisible."
This latest British foray is a "huge step forward" according to physicists, with the metamaterials comprised of minuscule nanostructures stacked together to "create a 3D flexible metamaterial," according to Dr Di Falco, from St Andrews University.
Next, the metamaterials must be bent and folded so the optical properties can be studied—something that could influence camera lenses, if they folded at will. If they remain impenetrable, then the invisibility cloak will become much more of a reality. [New Journal of Physics via BBC]