"Ensign Crusher! Activate the PLASMONIC SHIELD!!"

[athelind]

Engineers Devise Invisibility Shield
Electron effects could stop objects from scattering light.

Excerpt:

The key to the concept is to reduce light scattering. We see objects because light bounces off them; if this scattering of light could be prevented (and if the objects didn't absorb any light) they would become invisible. Alù and Engheta's plasmonic screen suppresses scattering by resonating in tune with the illuminating light.

Plasmons are waves of electron density, caused when the electrons on the surface of a metallic material move in rhythm. The researchers say that a shell of plasmonic material will scatter light negligibly if the light's frequency is close to the resonant frequency of the plasmons. The scattering from the shell effectively cancels out the scattering from the object.

For visible-light shielding, says Engheta, nature has already provided suitable plasmonic materials: silver and gold. To reduce the scattering of longer-wavelength radiation such as microwaves, one could make the shield from a 'metamaterial': a large-scale structure with unusual electromagnetic properties, typically constructed from arrays of wire loops and coils.

Alù and Engheta's calculations show that spherical or cylindrical objects coated with such plasmonic shields do indeed produce very little light scattering. It is as though, when lit by light of the right wavelength, the objects become extremely small, so small that they cannot be seen.

My gods! A "plasmonic screen"?? How can you not love a name like that? That is so going in my next SF game.

Comments

[shavastak.livejournal.com]

Oh awesome...I have got to renew my subscription to Nature. Too bad it's so expensive...

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I'm confused. It's not April first. What the heck is going on here? Is this real?

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Yep, theoretically -- though they haven't built one yet, and it's more a "cloaking device" that hides you from radar than an "invisibility screen". Check the whole article.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I called my grade 4's over to read your post. They were much more interested in it than they were in their medieval times research.

Then one of the officious little monsters closed down MY login while she was checking to make sure all her classmates had logged off. I was not amused.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'll start posting more about medieval times as I work on the Ironclaw Players Guide, then.

Flax, kids! FLAX!

[jonasbagel.livejournal.com]

Wow. It's a cloaking device. Fuckin-a. :D I want one.

[nicodemusrat.livejournal.com]

Mmmmm, okay. Points for cool names, no points for reporting or writing quality. I think that the reporter has blurred some important distinctions in a bad attempt to make this sound more revolutionary than it is.


if this scattering of light could be prevented (and if the objects didn't absorb any light) they would become invisible. [emphasis mine]

Note that the article title is immediately denied by this sentence, since the "shield" described is not transparent nor is it capable of (or meant to) make opaque objects invisible. Their technique also applies only to a single wavelength. So by the article's definition in this sentence, it's NOT an invisibility shield?


It is as though, when lit by light of the right wavelength, the objects become extremely small

Shouldn't they become extremely dim? (Unless they are referring to scattering levels being tied to angle of incidence, in which case the statement only applies to fully convex objects.)


This does sound like a very interesting discovery (it could lead to much better "stealth" coatings as well as anti-glare materials, as mentioned). And it may be legitimately considered "invisibility" with the proviso that we're not talking about human vision but radar (or some single-frequency scanning). I think the writer was really stretching things, AFAICT. It's disappointing to see this in Nature.

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

Also, don't use the words "do indeed" when you're talking about something that has not been tried empirically even once. The roots of the word "indeed" are not hard to figure out; it's not just there to make sentences look pretty.