New material can make objects ‘disappear’ by stopping them scattering radio waves

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LONDON: From Star Trek to Harry Potter, invisibility cloaks are a popular theme in science fiction that has led to scientists around the world to strive to turn the technology into a reality.

Now, experts in London have made an object completely ‘disappear’ by coating it in a material made of tiny particles.

Their cloaking device made curved surfaces appear flat to electromagnetic waves.

The researchers, from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), coated a curved surface with a material made of nano-sized particles.

The ‘composite’ material had seven distinct layers, where the electric property of each layer varies depending on the position.

The combined effect of all of these layers is to ‘cloak’ the object. This means a structure can hide an object that would normally have caused an incoming electromagnetic wave to be scattered.