BBC:
Invisibility cloaks have already been designed to be
undetectable by specific wavelengths of
light
and
sound,
and now there is a similar device for heat. Robert Schittny of
the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and his
colleagues have used copper and PDMS, a silicon-based material,
to create a pattern of thermally conducting and insulating
rings that leaves a 5-cm disk at its center untouched by heat.
Heat entering the pattern takes the paths of least resistance,
following the rings of high thermal conductivity, avoiding the
rings of low conductivity, and passing around the central disk
before exiting the pattern. To mask the fact that the heat is
being diverted, the rings are further designed to compensate
for the extra distance the heat has to travel so that the
distribution of the heat and temperature on the far side of the
pattern matches what would have been there if there were no
pattern in the material. Schittny suggests that the technique
could be useful in electronics where thermal energy needs to be
directed to or away from specific areas.
