Scientists at The University of Maryland have created an invisibility shield called ‘optical cloaking’ which renders two-dimensional objects invisible, using nanotechnology.
What is nanotechnology? As simply put as possible, it is controlling and manipulating materials on a nano scale.
This from the National Nanotechnology Initiative website: /html/facts/whatIsNano.html
“ How small is a nanometer?
It’s defined as one billionth of a meter. How small is that? Some ways to think about just how small a nanometer is:
A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick.
Blond hair is probably 15,000 to 50,000 nanometers in diameter, but black hair is likely to be between 50,000 and 180,000 nanometers.
There are 25,400,000 nanometers in an inch.
A nanometer is a millionth of a millimeter. “
The ‘invisible cloak’ is made up of a two-dimensional pattern of concentric rings of transparent plastic (concentric rings share the same axis or center but not always the same radius, one inside the other) over a layer of gold film. Because both materials have different refractive properties, light is guided around anything placed inside this ‘cloak’. Light that appears to the eye to move in a straight line, actually moves around the cloak covering the object. As no light is reflected back to the human eye the object appears invisible.
Check out the National Nanotechnology Initiative website!
