A University of California, San Diego researcher has made a major breakthrough in the realm of cloaking technology, according to USA Today. The breakthrough comes shortly after University of California, Berkeley researchers created an ultra-thin "invisibility cloak," as previously reported by HNGN.
Back in 2006, invisibility cloaks were only at the proof of concept stage and could only work on microwaves in two dimensions, according to The Daily Caller.
"This is the first time where we show that you can actually take electromagnetic waves and wrap them around some region that you want to conceal and restore them on the other side," said physicist David Smith at the time.
Now, researcher Boubacar Kante and his team have created the first "dielectric metasurface cloak," which is an ultra-thin, non-metal cloak that can manipulate electromagnetic waves such as light and radio waves. The research has been going on since July, according to TIME.
"I am very excited about this work," said Kante.
Kante states that the two main breakthroughs of his research are the use of ceramics in the Teflon and the ultra-thin material.
"Invisibility may seem like magic at first, but its underlying concepts are familiar to everyone. All it requires is a clever manipulation of our perception," he said. "Full invisibility still seems beyond reach today, but it might become a reality in the near future thanks to recent progress in cloaking devices."
The cloak has plenty of potential for military applications and has already attracted attention from the Pentagon. For example, planes that don't give off radio waves cannot be detected, meaning the cloak could be used in stealth operations.
