A new technology that allows seemingly “invisible” qualities to its user is in development by a team from the University of Texas in Austin.
For now, the technology is only able to hide objects at very specific wavelengths of microwaves, though progress is being made.
"We are looking into realising this technology at the moment, but we are still at the early stages," said Andrea Alu, Professor at the University of Texas. “When you add material around an object to cloak it, you can’t avoid the fact that you are adding matter.”
Alu said that, according to her work, there is a more promising way to create invisibility. Instead of using “passive” cloaks, cloaks which rely on tricking the eye without the use of external power, there are also “active” cloaks which use electricity.
CNN reports that this newest design is orders of magnitudes more effective than any previous passive type of cloak.
Alu’s newest design is based on this active kind of cloak, one which coats the object intended to be hidden with a coating of electricity.
Similar models have been in development since before 2006, which is when the first iteration of this concept was demonstrated in North Carolina at Duke University. During this first demonstration, a small copper object was concealed using microwaves, according to BBC.
Photo courtesy ofTwitter.
