It sounds like something out of a comic book, or Lord of the Rings, I know. But there’s a chance that invisibility real-life, honest-to-God invisibility may actually be possible, some day.
The technology doesnt come from some dubious unknown inventor, but from Professor Sir John Pendry, the legendary theoretical physicist, I write in this months BBC Focus magazine the world’s best science and technology monthly. Pendry has developed the concept of metamaterials, which have properties determined by their structure rather than their composition. This can give them ‘impossible’ properties, such as a negative refractive index. Initially, there was some debate about whether this could ever be achieved. But the proof came last year with the demonstration of a superlens capable of beating any lens made of normal material. 
By utilizing metamaterials, it should be possible, in theory, to create what Pendry calls an invisibility cloak — although invisibility shell might be more accurate as it will need to be rigid. Such a cloak would divert any incident light around its surface and release it on the same path on the other side: to any observer the wearer is invisible.
Interestingly, Pendrys work on metamaterials started when he was working for Marconi. He was looking at the application of carbon fiber for a stealth coating when he realized that its interaction with radar was determined by the length of the fibers it was effectively acting as an array of tiny aerials and that the same effect could have many other applications.
Invisibility in the optical spectrum will be challenging because metamaterials will need to be constructed on a scale corresponding to the wavelengths of visible light, which is just a few hundred nanometres. That technology will not be around for at least five years.
But radar invisibility is much easier because radar wavelengths are in the centimeter range. Pendrys colleague, Dr. David R. Smith at Duke University, is already working on a microwave metamaterial. Results are expected within eighteen months.
Unlike existing stealth techniques, a metamaterial should in principle be able to make an aircraft (or missile) literally invisible to any radar from any aspect.
There are likely to be other metamaterials along later. As Pendry explained, they can have all sorts of mechanical or acoustic properties as well as affecting light or other radiation. But for the mean time, we are likely to have out hands full just thinking of applications for invisibility.
The biggest question is likely to be the width of spectrum that any given material can handle. According to Pendry, a sufficiently deep metamaterial should be able to cope with a very wide spectrum. This might include all visible wavelengths plus a chunk of infra-red and UV. However, its clear that even very limited invisibility could be a major military asset.
– David Hambling
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
“he realized that its interaction with radar was determined by the length of the fibers
One issue worth mentioning – if you bend all EM radiation over a certain spectrum around yourself you can’t see in that spectrum, either, because no radiation reaches you to be detected. So if you’re invisible, you’re also blind. Not saying it’s no good, but it’s not quite a sci-fi cloaking shield.
William Gibson does it again. This sounds like the Polycarbon suits worn by the Panther Moderns in Neuromancer – written in 1984.
Eric hit on one of the two complications associated with EM refraction: 1) refracting light around you effectively makes you blind and 2) the cloaking lense would have to take the shape of a dome or large lense.
Provided that a cloaking lens only refracted visible light, one could get around the blindness problem with an infrared scope. Even if the lens wasn’t useful for maneuvering troops, you could probably use it to hide CPs, bases, or vehicle laagers from high altitude photography.
I thought superlens article made a more compelling case for the development of hyper-sensitive detection equipment. A negative refractive index on a spy satellite could break down resolution barriers for all types of snooping cameras.
I suspect that the ‘invisible infantryman’ is a way of putting the idea across and has all sorts of practical issues (how much of your job can you do inside a fiant egg?).
For vehicles it becomes a lot more practical; for sensors all you need are some pinhole-sized apertures which are going to be minimally visible.
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“you mean the spacing of the fibers, not their lengths”
No, I believe he said lengths.
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Another semi-obvious application: coat a missile in metamaterial invisible to the range of wavelengths used by the opponent’s anti-missile laser, rendering it useless.
About using the material as an anti-laser device – I suspect this won’t work any better than mirroring the thing.
Both run into the issue that a high energy pulse may not be completly absorbed, but if enough is the mirror/invisible material loses its special properties and the follow-up pulses burn through.
This brings up another issue – how durable is this stuff? If the radar-invisible material is carbon fiber, that’s pretty nice. But could you coat a missile or aircraft with all the stuff, or would the stuff that handles, say, visible light burn off a missile nose cone?
ok…that’s just creepy…the idea of a pair of eyes being there without a body accompanying it just freaks me out for some reason…lol.
Far more practical methods will probably be fabrics embedded with nano circuits activating color changing dyes, or nano OLED’s where small cameras view the environment cause a view of the surroundings to be displayed.
Even today, you could put something like a color e-ink material on a vehicle or aircraft and use a simple magnetic wand type mechanism (somewhat like a printer’s print head) to change the camo on it immediately. Such an approach might be good for armored vehicles and the underside of UAV’s.
Neither of these two cammo’s won’t be perfect, but are both near term and could provide considerably improved capabilities over today’s “static” systems.
David…a broadband microwave version has already been fielded in ‘special applications’.
This stuff has been called by various names over the past 15 years, it’s a bit confusing to most as to where and how to find info on it.
‘Metamaterial’ is the proper name but for a long while we’ve been calling them ‘left-handed magnetic materials’. If you poke around for it under that nomenclature you’ll find a bunch of info on the zero-to-negative permeability metamaterials. The entire metamaterial effect is sort of groupable under plasmonic engineering – the intentional modification of the behaviors of electron clouds around atoms.
A left-handed magnetic coating can do quite a bit of the things you discussed in your article, although now they can also achieve negative or radically enhanced permittivities, which is a totally different kettle of fish.
Left-handed coatings can do a lot of freaky things, amongst which are inverse or static Dopplers. That is, the return from the craft exhibits no Doppler effect or even more unintuitively return a LOWER frequency as they increase in velocity relative to the radar.
There are many an application for these. Some of them you haven’t mentioned yet.
Oh, btw, Phantomworks was the first to field.
well let us begin by stating that the jordan face mask used by the united states army lets state further you tardec have in one of your comments on the new face armour this face armour could be fitted with oleds which will cover the outter layer of the face armour which is displayed on one of your discriptions on face armour inside the face armour would incorporate a pair of glasses that will fit on the user of this invisible maqking device which will go along with the invisible suit which will give the invisible suit new directions and a change to new heights and so there it is
christopher perez the inventor of the new invisible tank technology thank you and let me finish these glasses will be connected to outside video cameras which will be located . these special glasses upon voice command will display any radius area which video cameras will be viewing in /on area of field of vision of the video glasses now lets try to build an anti missle defense in a few words and here it is ok lets have adefence missile that will be guided by real time gps which will incoporate thermal detecting technology and which will catch an image of the missile from un allied countrys we will incorporate further upon request very soon so…………..
i would also like to say hello to christian which is working with me on the invisible theory very soon we will have the product of the military of the united states of america and once again thank you christian very much for your intrest
sincerely mr christopher antonio perez
well let us begin by stating that the jordan face mask used by the united states army lets state further you tardec have in one of your comments on the new face armour this face armour could be fitted with oleds which will cover the outter layer of the face armour which will be connected to 2 video cameras one video camera on the back of helmet armor and one onthe the front of armor helmet the video camera that is located on back of helmet will display its area of viewing and will display it on the oleds on the front of helmet and the video camera that is onthe front of hemet will display the area and objects of upon it is viewing and will display its images on the oled screen on outer layer ofback of armor helmet armor helmet which you describe on this website which is displayed on one of your discriptions on face armour inside the face armour would incorporate a pair of glasses that will fit on the user of this invisible making device which will go along with the invisible suit which will give the invisible suit new directions and a change to new heights and so there it is
christopher perez the inventor of the new invisible tank technology thank you and let me finish these glasses will be connected to outside video cameras which will be located on either this armour helmet or on suit we want to be on the same degree of height distance and degree of directoral viewing.so that we get the invisible apearence these special glasses upon voice command will display any radius area which video cameras will be viewing in /on area of field of vision of the video glasses options will come to rear viwing front viewing these special glasses and video cameras will be able to see distances as far as miles or feet now lets try to build an anti missle defense in a few words and here it is ok lets have adefence missile that will be guided by real time gps which will incoporate thermal detecting technology and which will catch an image of a missile and capture its image so that missle and only that missile will be decimated along with some type of chemical which will lessen the amount of potency of that missiles radiation we will incorporate further upon request very soon so…………..
i would also like to say hello to christian which is working with me on the invisible theory very soon we will have the product of the military of the united states of america and once again thank you christian very much for your intrest
sincerely mr christopher antonio perez
DEVICE WHICH WILL INWARDLY INHABIT THE NUCLEAR DEFENCE MISSLE THE MISSLES RADAR MAPPING WILL MEASURE THE PROPERTIES WHICH ARE EVER CHANGING OF THE ON COMING MISSLE THIS ANTI NUCLEAR DEFENSE MISSLE MEASURES THE EVER CHANGING THERMAL SPANS AND LAPSES AFTER A THERMAL IMAGING PICTURE AND NEXT THING IT WOULD DO IS CAPTURE TRACK AFTER PICTURE NEXT WOULD BE SCANNING AND TRACKING THEN LAUNCH THEN LOCK THERMAL PICTURE TAKENTHEN MEASURING AND TRACKINGAND PROCEED LAUNCH APPROACH DESTROY THIS IS A IDEA TO HELP BUILD SPECIAL MISSLE DEFENCES OF OUR GREAT COUNTRY THE U.S. AND FINALLY A CLEANSING AGENT TO DENUCLEARIZE NUCLEAR PROPERTIES TO CREATE CLEAN AIR DURING ITERCEPTION OF UN ALLIED NUCLEAR MISSLE.
A BODY ARMOR OF HUGE MAGNETIC FIELD PULSES FOR SOLDIERS DURING BATTLE THE MAGNETIC ARMOR SUIT WILL CREATE A FULL MAGNETIC SCAN OF ALL AREAS INVOLVED FULL MAGNETIC ARMOR SUIT WILL BE CREATED OF FULL FIRE RETARDENT MATERIALS.
DESCRIPTION FINAL-
THE FULL MAGNETIC ARMOR SUIT WILL TO WHOMEVER IS EQUIPPED WITH FULL ARMOR SUIT WILL CREATE USER OF FULL MAGNETIC ARMOR WILL THENCEFORTH BECOME TRULY INVINCIBLE TO ALL METAL AND LED PROJECTILES.WHILE ANTI LEAD REPELLENT GENERATORS REPEL LEAD WHICH IS CONNECTED TO A LED DETECTING APPARATUS WHICH IS MICROWAVE LED SURVAILLING AND IMAGING SCANNER DETECTOR. THE MAGNETIC ARMOR WILL CREATE AN INVISIBLE SCAN OF ALL AREAS INVOLVED DURRING SPECIAL USE THE SCAN WILL DETECT ALL PROJECTILES METAL AND LEAD THE WAY THE LED SCAN WORKS IS BY ITS QUICK MICROWAVE RESPOSE AND DETECTION OF LED EACH SCAN WILL UPON RECEIVING LED AND METAL DETECTION RESPONSES WILL ACTIVATE MAGNETIC METAL REPEL DETECTION WHICH WILL BECOME ACTIVATED AND WHICH THE FULL MAGNETIC ARMOR SUIT IS ALLIEND IN REPELLING OF METAL AND LED PROJECTILES. …AND ARMOR WILL ALSO CREATE A SCAN WHILE IN ACTIVE COMBAT ON AND INACTIVE COMBAT THAT WILL DETECT WITH A THERMAL SCANNING AND DETECTING SCAN DEVICE WHICH UPON SCANNING HUGE PROPERTIES OF HEAT DURING EXSPLOSION OF ANY SORT WILL CREATE COOL SPOTS TO WHICHEVER AREA OF ARMOR DETECTS HUGE AMOUNTS OF HEAT A SMALL AIR CONDITIONING UNIT WILL BE LOCATED ON BACK OF U.S.SOLDIER AND BODY ARMOR WILL ALSO KEEP HUMAN BODY AT 98.6 DEGREES AT ALL TIMES OF USE OF THIS SPECIAL BODY ARMOR. HI CHRISTIAN TARDEC
i am very kind i would like to know whatever happened to my invisible tank theory that i helped you guys with i was working with christian jabobowski but she left by the way mabe you could…use another one of my ideas well inventions ………..
i believe that our fossil fuels have almost become depleted so lets switch off to nuclear energy its a good resource in which i do not see an end – lets power our automobiles with it instead of switching off to alternative fuels-
‘e85′-which will be a burden to our valuble and decreasing world food supplys. i believe in determining benefits of nuclear energy by using
small compartments in aircraft-,automobiles which will house small mineral of nuclear. Well let me say particle- this particle of nuclear-nuclear-energy will produce thousands of volts through element and i beleive this element should be made of phosphorus connected to two wires each of metal
the same way we extract electrical energy from nuclear through nuclear power plants i believe
the same shall be done in the use of nuclear energy being incorporated in automobiles and aircraft -machinery.
this IS TRUE BUT a kid in my class believes that their is garden nobes in the suit that makes this possible with an portable printer.
My class mate says that the suits are runed by little garden nobes and portable printers!
Is that true
I saw 2 military guys using the suits out in the superstition mountains 7 yrs ago. they didn't see me until I drove right by them. I have never told anyone until now. I have been afraid to until I found this web sight. I am still afraid sort of. I was always in the superstitions. I moved out of Arizona because of the things I've witnessed.