Physics professor John Howell and graduate student Joseph Choi have developed the Rochester Cloak, a cloaking device that makes things invisible using just four standard lenses.

One of the major problems with devices that can render objects invisible is that they only function if the object and viewer are stationary. Solving the issue has been difficult for researchers in the past.

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"There've been many high tech approaches to cloaking and the basic idea behind these is to take light and have it pass around something as if it isn't there, often using high-tech or exotic materials," said Howell.

Choi said the cloak he and the professor devised is the first device they know of that can do continuous, 3D, multidirectional cloaking, which relays light in the spectrum visible to humans.

Other than partially solving the problem with viewpoints, the Rochester Cloak does not interfere with the background, which happens in other cloaking devices.

The lenses, which are readily available in stores, are positioned at specific intervals to let the light act in particular ways.

Light is first focused into a fine point through one lens, which bends the light. The bent light is then focused through another lens and again through the next until the last lens. The bend in the light renders an object in the ring-shaped cloaking field invisible to a viewer looking through the lenses.

While the range of the current device has an invisible field approximately 15 degrees wide, it can be further refined with a more complex setup.

The cloak might not be used for spying any time soon. But the two inventors imagine it could be used beneficially in certain situations, such as letting surgeons operate on patients without having their view blocked by their hands or letting drivers see through blind spots.

TagsInvisibility Cloak, Rochester Cloak, Joseph Choi, John Howell, Invisible, Light, Lens, University of Rochester