By exploiting the way that atoms move in solids the researchers at Imperial College London have made solid materials turn completely transparent.
Despite the almost magical feat of making solids transparent the key finding of this research is the fundamental physical effect creating the transparency. This effect has potential in the development of new efficient lasers, data security and quantum computing.

•Japan’s Invisible man

japan-man_48

Back in 2003, a professor at the University of Tokyo created an optical camouflage system that makes anyone wearing a special reflective material seems to disappear.


A video camera records the real-life scenery behind the subject, transmits that image to a front-mounted projector, which then displays the scene on the reflective material.

•Invisibility-equipped Aston Martin

aston-martibn_48

Scientists discovered a new way to make objects invisible back in 2006. the idea was to employ metamaterials, a complex hybrid structure of metal and insulator that makes light move around an object. But, it was not easy to make cloaking devices that work on more than one wavelength of light at a time. Check out this video simulation of an invisibility-equipped Aston Martin.


•Microwave cloaking device

microwave-cloaking-device_48

In 2006, scientists at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering created a cloaking device that can re-route specific wavelengths of light. The microwave cloaking device was developed with artificial materials dubbed “metamaterials” that manipulate light in bizarre and startling ways.


The cloak was made of copper rings and wires ornated on to sheets of fiberglass composite. A three-dimensional invisibility cloak would make an object invisible completely.

•Blue Coats Making Humans Invisible

blue-coats_48

With the help of a simple blue screen fabric coat and two cameras, scientists crossed the bounds of what was considered impossible. The two cameras are mounted on and behind the person wearing a special blue screen fabric coat. So when a Chroma key was used, scientist were able to displace the blue colour of the coat and display images and video footage on it making the person look very invisible as his body blends with the visual environment.

•Nanofabricated Photonic Material

nanofabrication_48This phenomenon of negative refraction could be used in constructing optical microscopes, capable of imaging things as small as molecules. It can also help create cloaking devices that can render objects invisible.

With its help a new nanofabricated photonic material is been created by California Institute of Technology applied physics researchers Henri Lezec, Jennifer Dionne, and Professor Harry Atwater. This new material can create a negative refractive index in the blue-green region of the visible spectrum.

Well, Invisibility is a fastener of science novel, from H.G. Wells to Romulans. And, we are coming across the new technologies to make human beings invisible. Who knows who will be the next Invisible Man?