New
Scientist: Researchers may be coming closer to designing a
real invisibility cloak. Among the many groups developing the
necessary optical metamaterials are Alessandro Tuniz at the
University of Sydney's Institute of Photonics and Optical
Science in Australia and colleagues, whose results appear in
Optics Express
. They have been perfecting a method to make thin, flexible
threads whose components are smaller than the wavelength of
light by heating standard glass rods and metal tubes, then
drawing the assembly into a long thin fiber. So far, they have
produced threads 10 μm thick, but are working to make them
even thinner. According to the group's computer simulations, at
only 1 μm thick, the fiber's optical properties would
depend on wavelengthâmdash;the thread would be
invisible if seen in red light, but visible in green
light.
