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It could happen...and you'd have the generic!
Moniker 11/27/09
From PCMag.com:
Future Watch: An Invisibility Suit
05.02.07
by John Brandon
Science is finally catching up with science fiction.
It started with cloaking materials, called metamaterials, developed at Ames Laboratory, at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. Such materials can deflect microwave emissions around an object and restore them on the other side, rendering the object invisible. And recently the Ames Lab, which is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy, has achieved the same effect using visible light, giving metamaterial a negative refractive index. Think of it as the same visual trick that occurs when a river current flows over a rock to make it invisible.
"Right now, the materials we can build at terahertz and optical wavelengths operate in only one direction," says Costas Soukoulis, senior physicist at Ames Lab, "but we've still come a long ways in the six years since negative-index materials were first demonstrated."
The experiment could lead to new Defense Department stealth tactics, especially for weapons and equipment. And Soukoulis says the metamaterials could also be used in lens fabrication to create high-resolution images for molecular detection, aiding medical diagnoses.
Moniker 11/27/09
From PCMag.com:
Future Watch: An Invisibility Suit
05.02.07
by John Brandon
Science is finally catching up with science fiction.
It started with cloaking materials, called metamaterials, developed at Ames Laboratory, at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. Such materials can deflect microwave emissions around an object and restore them on the other side, rendering the object invisible. And recently the Ames Lab, which is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy, has achieved the same effect using visible light, giving metamaterial a negative refractive index. Think of it as the same visual trick that occurs when a river current flows over a rock to make it invisible.
"Right now, the materials we can build at terahertz and optical wavelengths operate in only one direction," says Costas Soukoulis, senior physicist at Ames Lab, "but we've still come a long ways in the six years since negative-index materials were first demonstrated."
The experiment could lead to new Defense Department stealth tactics, especially for weapons and equipment. And Soukoulis says the metamaterials could also be used in lens fabrication to create high-resolution images for molecular detection, aiding medical diagnoses.
