Scientists in the United Kingdom have, for the first time anywhere, demonstrated a practical cloaking device that renders an object invisible to surface waves.

A team from the Queen Mary University of London's School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science made an object with a curved surface "disappear" by using a composite material with nano-sized particles that enhanced specific properties on the object's surface.

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This first demonstration of a device that allows curved surfaces to seem flat to electromagnetic waves will have practical applications in antennas with different shapes attached in inelegant positions. The underlying design approach has wider applications, including optics that control any kind of electromagnetic surface waves.

To attain this invisibility, QMUL researchers coated a curved surface with a nanocomposite medium with seven distinct layers. In the resulting graded index nanocomposite, the electric property of each layer varies depending on its position.

The effect is to "cloak" the object to electromagnetic waves, meaning this structure can hide an object that would ordinarily have scattered the wave.

"The design is based upon transformation optics, a concept behind the idea of the invisibility cloak," said study co-author, Prof. Yang Hao from QMUL's School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science.

"Previous research has shown this technique working at one frequency. However, we can demonstrate that it works at a greater range of frequencies making it more useful for other engineering applications, such as nano-antennas and the aerospace industry."

The study and manipulation of surface waves is the key to develop technological and industrial solutions in the design of real-world platforms, for different application fields, said first author Dr Luigi La Spada also from QMUL's School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science.

"We demonstrated a practical possibility to use nanocomposites to control surface wave propagation through advanced additive manufacturing. Perhaps most importantly, the approach used can be applied to other physical phenomena that are described by wave equations, such as acoustics. For this reason, we believe that this work has a great industrial impact."

TagsQueen Mary University of London, School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Invisible, Prof. Yang Hao