Calvin Mulcahy

CREATING A WORLD OF MAGIC

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be invisible? You probably think
that it is a thing of science fiction and magic, but its not.
Scientists have been working on creating new artificial materials that they call
metamaterials. These material have the ability to bend light around them. These
materials can do this because its electric permittivity and magnetic permeability are both
negative. No natural material exist that has both the permittivity and permeability below
zero. This property occurs because of the way that the metamaterials are structured. In
order to get these properties the atoms used in this specific structure they have to be
laid out in a fish net pattern. The other much more difficult part is that the spacing
between the elements has to be less than the wavelength that you are trying to bend.
This concept of bending light is best explained with a commonly seen example. Imagine
a glass of water, when you put a straw into the glass and look through the side of the
portion of the straw that is under the water does not seem to connect with the portion
that is above the water. With this metamaterial it is similar but the portion of the straw
under the water is going the opposite direction then the portion of the straw that is
above the water.
This metamaterial is in part being used for military purposes to try and hide a
soldier and his shadow. Yet this is not the limit, this metamaterial can also be used in
the blind spots in cars to reduce accidents. It can also be sold to the public, or even
used in other structures or art. But like all things at the beginning there are always flaws.
One of these flaws for military use is that when the cloak is put on the soldier he is
plunged into complete darkness because no light is reaching him. This disables the
soldiers ability to see anything, this is one thing that scientist are working on fixing along
with trying to make the cloak have a one way transparency so that the solder can see
out of the cloak but no one can see through it on the outside. The flaw that is the most
challenging right now is creating a structure smaller than the wavelength of the light that
researchers are currently trying to bend. this is because we are limited on what
wavelengths we are able to manipulate. We can currently manipulate the wavelengths
in the red zone but then the wavelengths in the other zones are still be visible.