Ushering in the age of invisibility

By Rechell McDonald

Someone has finally done it. An invisibility cloak has been invented – and it actually works. The only downside is that, at the moment, it’s only 80 nanometers in size; but that’s just a bump in the road, right? It seems like many of our technological advances are spawned from science fiction, like Star Trek, but you have to start somewhere.

Based on the technology, which has been in development for years, the lead researchers on the project believe that it could ‘easily’ be scaled up, eventually. Now, we all assume that scaled-up means fit for human use, but that is not the case here – at least not yet. The project will likely need to be scaled up slowly, adjusted, and will have to go through a phase of troubleshooting each time.

For now, though, the ‘skin cloak’ built of gold nanoantennas that resemble tiny bricks, has successfully been able to hide a tiny three-dimensional arbitrary form with challenging surface features that include bumps and dents. It may be a small scale success, but it’s a tiny victory that could have massive implications and applications in the real world.