‘Invisibility’ cloak makes Superwoman’s invisible plane a dream come true.
After researchers at the University of California, San Diego invented the material that renders objects invisible, many hypotheses are being made about the military uses of the ‘Invisibility’ Cloak. The Pentagon and the U.S. Army has been very impressed by the abilities of the ‘invisibility’ cloak and they plan to use it for their future missions.
People have always dreamt of becoming invisible and doing things without people being able to see them. Invisible cars, planes and drones have been the subject of many spy movies, but there was little hope for such projects to come true.
Until last week when scientists at the University of California, San Diego have communicated that they have created the first ‘invisibility’ cloak. The 3mm thick material is nothing but a ceramic layer that may be placed on top of objects to hide them from people’s sight.
And there is more: the ‘invisibility’ cloak can manipulate electromagnetic waves, which means they can go unnoticed by radars functioning on visible light or radio waves.
Boubacar Kante, the leader of the experiment, is now seeking to patent his new invention. He claims there could be many uses for the ‘invisibility’ material, but the most obvious are the military ones. The biggest asset of his new invention is that the new material is incredibly thin and light compared to previous versions that have been released.
‘Invisibility’ cloak was first invented in 2006, but the lack of proper materials (Teflon was used instead of ceramics) narrowed scientists’ creativity. The material they have created was approximately 10 times thicker; hence, very hard to use.
The U.S. Army thinks the 3mm ‘invisibility’ cloak is much more appropriate for their missions. They think they can place the ceramic surface on many of their military vehicles and make them invisible for radars. All they have to do is place the ceramic layer on top of vehicles’ finishing coats.
Kante has confessed that more work needs to be done to improve the structure of the ‘invisibility’ layer. He has stated that the material is not completely invisible because its pattern still remains visible; hence, future researches will have to do away with this issue.
In addition, light can influence the ‘invisibility’ of the layer. It all depends on the way in which light falls on the material and according to Kante, the correct position would be of 45-degree angle and 6 degree.
Scientists also have to work to make the cloak invisible to all wavelengths at the same time. For the moment, the material can only be programmed to be invisible for one type of radar, not all.
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