High-tech cloaking machines could one day render very small objects nearly invisible and perhaps improve military stealth technology, scientists said Monday.
The idea is straight out of science fiction -- cloaking technology made Romulan spaceships disappear in Star Trek. A humble version of the device could become a reality, according to Nader Engheta and Andrea Alu of the University of Pennsylvania.
But don't expect to hide yourself or your spaceship anytime soon, at least not in the standard sense of invisible. In practical terms, the research is more likely to lead to improved technical and research devices, and even these applications are years away.
The proposal involves using plasmons -- tiny electronic excitations on the surfaces of some metals -- to cancel out the visible light or other radiation coming from an object.
...