Engineers devise invisibility shield

[tarun]

Engineers devise invisibility shield - taken from another forum (http://rohit.bizhat.com/forums)
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050228/full/050228-1.html

Electron effects could stop objects from scattering light.
The idea of a cloak of invisibility that hides objects from view has long been confined to the more improbable reaches of science fiction. But electronic engineers have now come up with a way to make one.

Types of invisibility shielding have been developed before, but these mostly use the chameleon principle: a screen is coloured to match its background, so that the screened object is camouflaged.

But the invisibility shield proposed by Alù and Engheta in a preprint on arXiv1 is more ambitious than this.The key to the concept is to reduce light scattering. We see objects because light bounces off them; if this scattering of light could be prevented (and if the objects didn't absorb any light) they would become invisible. Alù and Engheta's plasmonic screen suppresses scattering by resonating in tune with the illuminating light.

[cash_site]

I was just going to make that point....
There have been many research projects on "Cloaking" technologies using the chameleon principle. VERY Simple view: a camera on the back of head, and flexible LCD on front shirt displaying back image - I can see right through you!!

They are already trying to use this technology in the bottom of jets and helicopters, so you can "look through the floor"

Now, trying to absorb the light is pretty interesting... but I would think that it wouldnt become invisible, more just very very black?? As you wouldnt be able to see through it, so if you stand infront of wall, it would look like that section of the wall just doesnt exist?? So shoot at it :p

One day we'll get there ;)

[SupaStar]

Sounds interesting. Would love to see it in action. Imagine all the parents losing their kids due to Harry Potter copy-cat type incidents!

[tarun]

Now, trying to absorb the light is pretty interesting... but I would think that it wouldnt become invisible, more just very very black?? As you wouldnt be able to see through it, so if you stand infront of wall, it would look like that section of the wall just doesnt exist?? So shoot at it :p
One day we'll get there ;)

They say Alù and Engheta's plasmonic screen suppresses scattering by resonating in tune with the illuminating light.

Plasmons are waves of electron density, caused when the electrons on the surface of a metallic material move in rhythm. The researchers say that a shell of plasmonic material will scatter light negligibly if the light's frequency is close to the resonant frequency of the plasmons. The scattering from the shell effectively cancels out the scattering from the object.
So I guess theyve made the light pass almost through (negligably scattering) as if there wasnt a particle in the 1st place.
The downside being that its possible only for TINY particles and
Perhaps even more of a drawback, he points out, is the fact that a particular shield only works for one specific wavelength of light.

An object might be made invisible in red light, say, but not in multiwavelength daylight.

And crucially, the effect only works when the wavelength of the light being scattered is roughly the same size as the object. So shielding from visible light would be possible only for microscopic objects; larger ones could be hidden only to long-wavelength radiation such as microwaves. This means that the technology could not be used to hide people or vehicles from human vision.
Sad but true :grab:

[cash_site]

Well there you go... so this must work with the similar principle of noise-cancelling headphones, where they take ambient noise, and emit the opposite phase, thus cancelling out...

This is groundbreaking stuff, even though it make not 100% be the solution we want RIGHT now... but 10's of years of research will be spawned... cant wait for some chrome paint like StarWars Spaceship :D

[egghead]

i saw this in a James Bond movie...

I thought this technology was copy protected....:confused:

Some movie studio is gonna win big now that it's out in the open




:)

[cash_site]

i saw this in a James Bond movie...

I thought this technology was copy protected....:confused:

Some movie studio is gonna win big now that it's out in the open

:)
That's right, the invisible DB9 :D I love the bond series, wanna get the 20Box set...

I wish I could drive a CGI car... lol