3D invisibility cloak made out of metamaterials

The Invisibility Cloak is finally out! Scientists investigating potential methods for rendering physical objects invisible to the human eye have now moved to the full three-dimension. The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology has developed a photonic metamaterial that can make things disappear when viewed from all angles, advancing from previous light refraction methods that only worked in 2D.

The invisibility cloaks are not really turning anything invisible, but rather playing tricks with the light, misdirecting it so that the objects they encase cannot be seen. Normally, the cloaks only work in two dimensions, so just by changing your point of view a bit, the cloak will become obvious, and the hidden object can be seen—a limitation scientists want to overcome. The 3D cloak in this case is made of woodpile-structured photonic crystals that can redirect light of wavelengths around the size of the crystals' rod spacing.

While crystals tailored to the visible range would hardly fool the human eye, a infrared cloak could probably fool a security detection system pretty easily. At any rate, it could at least make the object it covers look more like an anomaly than an approaching threat.