Optical cloaking and invisibility: From fiction

toward a technological reality

Cite as: J. Appl. Phys. 129, 231101 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0048846
Submitted: 27 February 2021 • Accepted: 15 May 2021 • Published Online: 15 June 2021

Kyu-Tae Lee, Chengang Ji, Hideo Iizuka, et al.

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J. Appl. Phys. 129, 231101 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0048846 129, 231101

© 2021 Author(s).
 Journal of TUTORIAL scitation.org/journal/jap
Applied Physics

Optical cloaking and invisibility: From fiction

toward a technological reality
Cite as: J. Appl. Phys. 129, 231101 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0048846
Submitted: 27 February 2021 · Accepted: 15 May 2021 · View Online Export Citation CrossMark
Published Online: 15 June 2021

Kyu-Tae Lee,1,a) Chengang Ji,2 Hideo Iizuka,3 and Debasish Banerjee3,a)

AFFILIATIONS
1
Department of Physics, Inha University, Incheon 22212, South Korea
2
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
3
Toyota Research Institute of North America, Toyota Motor North America, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48105, USA

a)
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed: ktlee@inha.ac.kr and debasish.banerjee@toyota.com

ABSTRACT
Optical invisibility, which started in the pages of fiction before becoming an intriguing quest of humankind for over a century, has
blossomed into a remarkable scientific journey toward reality over the last two decades. Perfect optical cloaking requires the total scattering
of electromagnetic waves around an object at all angles, all polarizations, over a wide frequency range, irrespective of the medium. Such a
device is still far-fetched, requiring the transformation of space around a cloaked region such that the phase velocity is faster than other
areas to preserve the phase relationships. However, by simplifying the invisibility requirements, pioneering work on spherical transformation
cloaks, carpet cloaks, plasmonic cloaks, and mantle cloaks has been realized in narrowband microwave, infrared, and even optical wave-
lengths. In this Tutorial, we review the theoretical basis for invisibility cloaking, from spherical transformational optics to non-Euclidian
cases, and discuss their limitations. Subsequently, we highlight the recent trends in realizing reconfigurable intelligent cloaks to overcome
the traditional limitations of wideband operation and parallel efforts in unidirectional cloaking. Because the human eye is insensitive to the
phase and polarization of visible light, a class of ray optics cloaking devices has been recently developed by eliminating phase preservation
requirements. Notably, we focus on the recent progress achieved on invisibility cloaks that function in natural incoherent light and can be
realized using standard optical components. We conclude this Tutorial with a prospective of potential applications and the practicality of
optical cloaks in everyday life.

Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0048846

I. INTRODUCTION
The remarkable progress of electromagnetics over the last two
decades is defined by the realization of metamaterials. Metamaterials
are artificially structured materials exhibiting extraordinary proper-
ties that are not observed in natural materials. This is achieved by
designing a new class of periodically arranged engineered macro-
scopic “atoms” of the desired physical property rather than being
guided by their chemical composition. In 1968, Veselago first dis-
cussed the possibility of negative permeability and permittivity.1 The
concept remained dormant until 1999, when Pendry et al. demon-
strated a practical method of designing left-handed metamaterials
that did not follow the conventional right-hand rule of electromag-
netics.2,3 Since then, an explosion of various concepts and ideas
occurred, resulting in a richer understanding of the permittivity–
permeability plane. Notably, the intriguing technique of bending
light led to the concepts of negative optical refraction and super-
lensing, paving the way for the development of various
metadevices.4,5
Light–matter interaction through metamaterials has enabled
exciting technological developments that were not possible before.
One of the most fascinating applications of metamaterials is the
possibility of realizing an optical cloak around an object, making
incoming light bypass it. The initial spherical transformation pro-
posal by Pendry et al.6 and Leonhardt,7 although theoretically
elegant, required an anisotropic variation of permeability and per-
mittivity tensors that were virtually impossible to fabricate in prac-
tice. Subsequently, a simplified 2D cylindrical transformational
cloak was proposed and experimentally verified for microwave fre-
quencies by Schurig et al.; the dielectric and magnetic property var-
iations were designed in a radial direction.8 Over the years, what

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started as the ultimate exemplification of the metamaterial concept,
the science of optical cloaking has made progress beyond even the
physics of metamaterials, eyeing breakthrough applications in
optical shielding, blind-spot monitoring, non-invasive sensors, and
so on. A chronological summary of major breakthroughs in this
area over the last 20 years is shown in Fig. 1.
More recently, a class of cloaking devices has been proposed
based on the initial transformational optics, namely, carpet
cloaks that utilize a quasi-conformal mapping of transforma-
tional optics—with the advantages of more accessible material
parameters for wider bandwidths.9 To that end, plasmonic and
mantle cloaks have been theorized using scattering cancellation
methods that do not aim to design a perfect cloak, but rather use
scattering dominant terms in the multipole expansion of the
scattered field, hence easing the material requirements.10,11 Many
other types of passive and active cloaking devices have been pro-
posed over the years;12,13 however, the realization of an ideal
three-dimensional cloak over the whole visible wavelength spec-
trum remains challenging. Consequently, while such efforts con-
tinue, a class of ray optics cloaking devices has been proposed
over the last decade with the aim of hiding an object.14,15
FIG. 1. Chronological summary of notable works on various optical cloaking methods. Time scale is approximate.
J. Appl. Phys. 129, 231101 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0048846
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Because the human eye is insensitive to the polarization and
phase of light, approximations that relax those requirements have
enabled the development of broadband, large-size cloaks consist-
ing of standard optical components such as lenses, prisms, and
polarizers. This approach, while not as rich in physics as meta-
materials, could be immensely useful for many practical applica-
tions in the future. Although previous reviews have covered
metamaterial-based cloaking devices, the latter part of the more
recent story has not been categorically compiled. In this Tutorial,
although we cover major breakthroughs in optical cloaking
science, starting with passive and active cloaking, we focus
mainly on geometrical optics and its potential applicability. In
the end, we present the latest optical cloaking research trends
that utilize breakthroughs in other areas of science, including
data science and machine learning.
Although it is beyond the scope of this review, it is worth men-
tioning that optical cloaking studies have inspired and helped other
fields beyond electromagnetics—namely, transient thermal cloaking,16
thermal waves,17–19 elastic waves,20 sound waves,21 surface fluidic
waves,22 and even quantum matter waves23—to envision invisibility
possibilities. Beyond the bending of waves, the concept of temporal
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cloaking has also been explored, wherein the occurrence of an event
is cloaked creating a “time hole” in the probe beam.24,25
II. METAMATERIAL-BASED CLOAKING
We present a brief overview of metamaterial cloaking, that is,
transformation optics, metasurfaces, and scattering cancellation.
The details of these techniques can be found in previous review
papers.12,13,26,27
A. Transformation optics
We consider the electromagnetic field distribution in the
virtual coordinate system and the transformed electromagnetic field
$ $
distribution in the physical coordinate system, where ( ε , μ ) and
$0 $0
( ε , μ ) represent the permittivity and permeability tensors in the
virtual and physical coordinate systems, respectively. Maxwell’s
equations have exactly the same form in any coordinate system;
therefore, the electromagnetic field distributions between the
virtual and physical coordinates can be transformed as
$ $T $ $ $T $
$0 J J ε $0 J J μ split-ring resonators was designed for one polarization and
ε ¼ $ , μ ¼ $ ,
det( J ) det( J )
$ μ0r , and μ0θ ) from six components in the cylindrical coordinate
0
where J is the Jacobian matrix, Jj ¼ @x
@xj (i, j ¼ 1, 2, 3).
In principle, transformation optics allows one to hide a large
object. In 2006, transformation optics for cloaking was indepen-
dently presented by Pendry et al.6 and Leonhardt.7 The paths of
electromagnetic waves in the physical coordinate system can be
controlled within a metamaterial with an appropriate spatial dis-
tribution of permittivity and permeability. The transformation
optics gives an ideal cloak, i.e., an object is cloaked for arbitrary
polarization and no reflection occurs at the interface of the
FIG. 2. (a) Transformation optics for cloaking a sphere. (b) Cylindrical cloak composed of split-ring resonators for microwaves. Figures reproduced with permission from
Pendry et al., Science 312, 1780 (2006). Copyright 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science for (a) and Schurig et al., Science 314, 977 (2006) for (b).
Copyright 2006 American Association for the Advancement of Science.
J. Appl. Phys. 129, 231101 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0048846
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metamaterial and the background medium such as air. For
example, we consider the hidden object to be a sphere of radius
R1 and the cloaking region to be contained within the annulus
R1 < r < R2 for an incident plane wave [Fig. 2(a)]. The coordinate
$0 $0
transformation gives permittivity ε and permeability μ distribu-
tions in the region of R1 < r < R2 in the spherical coordinate
system (r,θ,f) as6
R2 (r0  R1 )2
ε0r ¼ μ0r ¼ ,
R2  R1 r0 2
R2
ε0θ ¼ μ0 θ ¼ , (2)
R2  R1
R2
ε0f ¼ μ0f ¼ ,
R2  R1
where r 0 ¼ R1 þ r(R2  R1 )/R2 . Equation (2) indicates that both
permittivity and permeability are identical and anisotropic, ensur-
ing no reflection for arbitrary polarization. In practice, it is chal-
lenging to implement such extreme permittivity and permeability
parameters. In the pioneering experimental work on cloaking
[Fig. 2(b)],8 a two-dimensional cloak prototype composed of
(1)
non-zero reflection being allowed, that is, three components (ε0z ,
system were considered. Subsequently, the validity of cloaking an
object was confirmed at frequencies around 8.5 GHz.
In the optics regime, however, such split-ring resonators can
no longer be used. Cai et al.28 presented a two-dimensional
optical metamaterial cloak consisting of metallic nanowires
immersed in a cylindrical silica medium. Similarly, considering
one polarization and non-zero reflection, the validity of cloaking
was numerically confirmed at 632.8 nm, assuming a helium–neon
laser.
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In other words, in the cloaking design using transformation
optics, allowing non-zero reflection and limiting the polarization
avoid extreme parameters in practice. It has been reported29 that
such cylindrical cloaks with simplified material parameters inher-
ently allow the zeroth-order cylindrical wave to pass through the
cloak; this is a factor failing invisibility.
Non-Euclidian transformation cloaking has been introduced,
wherein the cloak does not preserve the phase of the incident wave
and provides a wideband frequency response. Non-Euclidian cloak-
ing remains difficult to practically implement, while it reduces the
material parameter requirements.30
J. Appl. Phys. 129, 231101 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0048846
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When there is an object on a reflector, an incident wave is
scattered from the object. The aim of carpet cloaking is to make the
reflection wave similar to that without the object by engineering
the refractive index profile around the object [Fig. 3(a)].9 The
carpet cloak relaxes the requirements of permittivity and perme-
ability to cloak an object, allowing experimental demonstrations in
the microwave31,32 and optical ranges.33–38 In one of these
studies,31 a microwave carpet cloak consisted of non-resonant
“H”-shaped metallic elements and concealed a bump from 13 to
16 GHz [Fig. 3(b)]. In another study,33 an optical carpet cloak was
implemented on a silicon-on-insulator wafer, wherein the silicon
FIG. 3. (a) Carpet cloak where the regions in cyan are
transformed between the virtual and physical systems.
The observer perceives the physical system as the virtual
one with a flat ground plane. (b) Microwave carpet cloak
composed of H-shaped metallic patterns and its refractive
index distribution. (c) Optical carpet cloak fabricated on a
silicon-on-insulator wafer. The holes are milled with
varying densities, yielding the desired spatial index profile.
Figures reproduced with permission from Li and Pendry,
Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 203901 (2008). Copyright 2008
American Physical Society for (a), Liu et al., Science 323,
366 (2009). Copyright 2009 American Association for the
Advancement of Science for (b), and Valentine et al., Nat.
Mater. 8, 568 (2009). Copyright 2009 Springer Nature
Limited for (c).
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slab served as a two-dimensional waveguide [Fig. 3(c)]. The refrac-
tive index profile was realized by varying the hole densities. The
cloaking phenomenon was observed in the range of 1400–1800 nm.
B. Metasurface cloak
We consider a scenario in which a monochromatic plane wave
is incident on an object placed on a flat plate, the object being
covered by a metasurface. If each unit cell of the metasurface can
control the phase by 360 with unity-amplitude in the reflection
wave, an arbitrary wavefront can be engineered. In other words, a
proper phase profile over the metasurface can generate a reflection
response that is the same as the case of the flat plate without the
object.
The function of the carpet cloak was experimentally demon-
strated using a metasurface with its thickness being much smaller
than the operating wavelength in the microwave range in 2013.39
The unit cell consisted of a “H”-shaped metallic pattern and
showed almost full coverage of the reflection phase by varying the
size of the pattern, leading to an arbitrary phase profile over the
metasurface. Various unit cells have been investigated, such as
silver nanocavities40 for the visible range, metallic rings41,42 for the
millimeter-wave and terahertz ranges, and dielectric cylinders43 for
the microwave range. In 2015, a metasurface cloak composed of
gold nanoantennas was experimentally demonstrated in the optics
range (Fig. 4).44 The metasurface concealed a 3D shaped object
including multiple bumps and dents at an operating wavelength of
730 nm for one polarization. Arbitrary polarization for a metasur-
face cloak was experimentally demonstrated using metallic rings in
the microwave range.45 Metasurfaces with dual-frequency46 and
multi-frequency operation47 have also been reported.
FIG. 4. Illustration of a metasurface skin cloak. Figure reproduced with permis-
sion from Ni et al., Science 349, 1310 (2015). Copyright 2015 American
Association for the Advancement of Science.
J. Appl. Phys. 129, 231101 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0048846
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C. Scattering cancellation
We consider the scattering of a subwavelength spherical object in
air for the incidence of a monochromatic plane wave. The electromag-
netic field outside of the spherical object is expanded with different
channels labeled (l, m, σ), where l, m, and σ represent the total
angular momentum, the angular momentum component along one
of the axes—for example, z (−l ≤ m ≤ l)—and the polarization, respec-
tively. The expansion expression of spherical waves and the boundary
condition of the spherical object to air determine the coefficients of
the channels. The total scattering cross section is then given by48
XX
1  
λ2 Rl,σ  12
Cs ¼ (2l þ 1) , (3)
2 
σ
2π
l¼1
where λ is the wavelength and the reflection coefficient is defined as
þ þ
Rl,σ ¼ a 
l,m,σ /al,m,σ (jRl,σ j  1), with al,m,σ and al,m,σ being the incom-
ing wave and outgoing wave amplitudes, respectively. Equation (3)
indicates that the scattering cross section of the spherical object at
(l,σ) can be zero when Rl,σ ¼ 1. Owing to spherical symmetry, Rl,σ is
a function of (l,σ), but not of m.
A scattering cancellation technique for cloaking a subwave-
length spherical or cylindrical object was reported by Alù and
Engheta.10 The scattering cross section of a dielectric sphere with
positive permittivity is significantly reduced by a plasmonic coating
with negative permittivity, that is, the dipole moment contributions
FIG. 5. (a) Cancellation of the overall dipole moment of a dielectric spherical
core covered with a plasmonic shell. (b) A bare sensor may receive signals and
be detectable from the outside [left in (b)]. A properly designed plasmonic cloak
over the sensor may allow the detector to receive the signals while making its
presence undetectable [right in (b)]. Figures reproduced with permission from
Alù and Engheta, Phys. Rev. E 72, 016623 (2005). Copyright 2005 American
Physical Society for (a) and Alù and Engheta, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 233901
(2009). Copyright 2009 American Physical Society for (b).
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from the core and the shell are cancelled out [Fig. 5(a)]. This
concept was experimentally verified in the microwave range;49 a
dielectric cylinder was surrounded by a plasmonic shell consisting
of metallic fins immersed in liquid (acetone) and placed in a
parallel-plate waveguide. The scattering cross section of a test
sample with a total radius of 31.3 mm was effectively reduced at
approximately 2 GHz.
Sensors and detectors are occasionally required to be less dis-
turbing to the surrounding environment, for example, near-field
scanning optical microscopy. The scattering cancellation technique
has been extended to the concept of a “cloaking sensor” [Fig. 5(b)],50
wherein the incoming wave interacts with the inner sphere or the cyl-
inder. The incoming wave can be measured by the inner object, while
its presence is not perceived by the surroundings. A cloaked optical
microscope tip has been reported.51
A mantle cloaking has also been presented, where a thin pat-
terned surface having a properly designed surface impedance hides
a subwavelength object (Fig. 6).11,52 Chen and Alù reported that a
graphene monolayer was used for the mantle cloak in the terahertz
range.53 The concept of the mantle cloak was experimentally veri-
fied in the microwave range.54
The scattering of an arbitrarily shaped object is possible
through the inverse design of the scattering potential for a specific
frequency and angle.55 The scattering cancellation of object “HV”
was experimentally demonstrated in the microwave range.56
D. Reconfigurable and intelligent cloak
A reconfigurable metasurface cloak was experimentally dem-
onstrated in the microwave range. The metasurface was composed
of unit cells with each having a variable capacitor,57 and the reflec-
tion response in each unit cell was tuned using a bias voltage. The
metasurface not only hid a bump but also mimicked other virtual
shapes for the reflection response.
FIG. 6. Mantle cloak structures. The metallic spherical surface has holes in (a) and slits in(b). Figure reproduced with permission from Alù, Phys. Rev. B 80, 245115
(2009). Copyright 2009 American Physical Society.
J. Appl. Phys. 129, 231101 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0048846
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Machine learning has been widely explored in various research
fields, and sophisticated algorithms allow the realization of various
intelligent metasurfaces. Consequently, an intelligent metasurface
cloak was experimentally demonstrated in the microwave range
(Fig. 7).58 Similarly, in the aforementioned case, where each unit
cell has a variable capacitor, the reflection response was used as a
bias voltage. A deep learning technique controls the bias voltages of
variable capacitors over the metasurface based on the information
of the incident wave and the reflected spectrum. The metasurface
cloak hides an object without any human intervention when the
background is varied.
E. UNIDIRECTIONAL INVISIBLE CLOAK
Bender and Boettcher presented the notion of non-Hermitian
parity-time (PT) symmetry in 1998, where the eigenvalues of a
system could be real and positive through the combination of gain
and loss.59 Non-Hermitian PT symmetry has been applied to peri-
odic structures, revealing unidirectional invisibility at the excep-
tional point.60 A one-way invisible cloak was theoretically explored
by means of the transformation optics of parity-time symmetric
optical materials using the unidirectional feature at the exceptional
point.61 A grating of wide metallic strips with active elements62 and
antennas with active elements in a cylindrical arrangement, as
physical implementations of such PT symmetric unidirectional
cloaks, was discussed.63
Amemiya et al. presented the concept of an effective electro-
magnetic field for photons and a design of nonreciprocal invisibil-
ity cloaks using a photonic lattice model.64 A one-way invisible
cloak was observed in a numerical model of a photonic crystal
composed of yttrium–iron–garnet asymmetrically shaped semi-
cylinders when an external direct current (DC) magnetic field was
applied.65 It has been argued that if the spatial distributions of the
real and imaginary parts of the permittivity in a planar medium
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are related to one another using the Kramers–Kronig relationships,
unidirectional invisibility can be achieved.66
F. Discussion
Transformation optics presents ideal conditions to hide a large
object, namely, non-reflection, both polarizations, full-visible range,
and omni-direction. While transformation-optics-based cloaks have
opened up and boosted the research field of optical cloaks, the real-
ization of optical cloak devices that require extreme parameters
remains challenging. As an alternative approach, geometrical optics
has garnered substantial interest with the development of practical
devices able to operate across the full-visible wavelength range—for
example, angle-dependent cloaking—by abandoning the omni-
directional characteristic, although practical scenarios are limited.
The function of the carpet cloak, which can hide a bump, is
achieved using metasurfaces. In particular, metasurfaces are compati-
ble with tunable functions because only the amplitude and the phase
of an electromagnetic field on a metasurface need to be controlled,
compared with bulk metamaterials. The scattering cancellation tech-
nique has an intrinsic limitation on the size of an object that can be
cloaked, while they remain attractive for hiding subwavelength
objects. Beyond the optical cloaks discussed in Secs. II A–II C,
several proposals—including the use of active unit cells driven by
machine learning algorithms in Sec. II D and borrowing analogies
from the physics community in Sec. II E—have achieved new cloak-
ing devices breakthroughs.
J. Appl. Phys. 129, 231101 (2021); doi: 10.1063/5.0048846
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FIG. 7. Schematic of a deep learning-enabled self-
adaptive metasurface cloak. Figure reproduced with per-
mission from Qian et al., Nat. Photonics 14, 383 (2020).
Copyright 2020 Springer Nature Limited.
III. GEOMETRICAL OPTICS-BASED CLOAKING
Although various metamaterial cloaking methods based on
scattering cancellation, transformation optics, and metasurfaces
have been demonstrated, hiding a large spatial object over a broad
range of wavelengths in the visible region has been challenging.
Ray optics cloaking has attracted considerable attention because of
its great promise in achieving a broad bandwidth (covering the
entire visible spectrum) and scaling to arbitrarily large sizes using
off-the-shelf optics. In contrast to transformation optics, where
both the amplitude and the phase of light are preserved, the ampli-
tude and the direction of light are preserved in the ray optics cloak
scheme. Many optical components, such as mirrors, lenses, and
prisms, are commercially available and operate over a broad range
of wavelengths. In addition to its broad bandwidth, the large-scale
implementation of a cloaking structure with optical elements is
much simpler and more cost-effective than is the case with a meta-
material cloak. We provide an overview of ray optics cloaking that
exploits optical components, such as mirrors, prisms, lenses, and
digital technology.
A. Mirror-based cloaking designs
Reflection is the change in the direction of propagation of a
wave at a boundary between two different media, thereby allowing
the wave to return into the medium from which it began propagat-
ing. High reflection can be achieved by using a metallic mirror and
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Applied Physics

FIG. 8. (a) Schematic of an only flat-mirror based cloaking structure. Optical images showing (b) an aerial and (c) on-axis views of the experimental setup where a chair
is located in a cloaked region and a trashcan is positioned in the background. Figure reproduced with permission from Howell et al., Appl. Optics 53, 1958 (2014)
Copyright 2014 The Optical Society of America.

a dielectric mirror, which can be employed to construct a cloaking
device. The simplest cloaking design would be a plane mirror only
cloak structure where two flat mirrors are separated and rotated by
45°, with another set of two flat mirrors reversing the effect of the
first set, as shown in Fig. 8(a),68 where the collimated light is
reflected twice using the first set of mirrors, creating a transverse
displacement with respect to the starting trajectory. Next, the
second set of mirrors retroreflects the light to return it to its initial
path. Any object with a nearly arbitrary size cannot be seen
between the top two plane mirrors.
The cloaked region can be extended longitudinally by making
the separation between the two plane mirrors large after the light
rays are collimated with transverse displacement using the two
mirrors. An aerial view of the implemented cloak device is shown
in Fig. 8(b), where two sets of right-angled mirrors redirect light
around the cloaked region. As shown in Fig. 8(c), a trashcan can be
clearly seen, while a chair located in the cloaked region is invisible.
The plane mirrors in the cloak device, as shown in Fig. 8(a),
can be replaced by a right-angle prism where the total internal
reflection (TIR) of the prisms is utilized to bend the light rays
around the cloaked region. Figure 9(a) depicts a schematic of a
right-angle prism-based cloaking device. The collimated light rays
undergo TIR twice through the two successive right-angle prisms
and are thus transversely shifted from their original trajectory, the
second set of two right-angle prisms causing the light rays to
return to their original path. An object can be cloaked between two

FIG. 9. (a) Schematic of a right-angle prism-based cloaking structure where prisms work like mirrors. Optical images showing (b) an aerial and (c) front views of the exper-
imental setup where a metallic bar is located in the cloaked region and a toy car is placed behind the cloaking device.

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sets of right-angle prisms, and a longitudinally extended cloaking
region can be attained by creating a large distance between the two
sets of prisms. For experimental demonstrations, commercially
available right-angle glass prisms are assembled to create a prism-
based optical cloak device, as shown in Fig. 9(b). An image of the
experimental setup of the cloaking structure along the optical axis
is shown in Fig. 9(c), demonstrating that a toy car placed behind
the cloak device can be clearly seen through the cloak device
without seeing a metallic bar in the cloaking area. The glass prism
can be replaced by a plastic prism so that both the weight and cost
of the implemented cloaking device can be significantly reduced.
Figure 10(a) shows a cloak device with 12 ports comprising
off-the-shelf mirrors and beam-splitting polarizers, where the
viewing zones are labeled I–IV69 and the light for the vertical polar-
ization in regions II and III being reflected by a plane mirror
rotated by 45°; this is then reflected again by the beam-splitting
polarizer, leading to a displacement relative to its initial route, that
is, any object can be cloaked in the middle of the displacement.
Another set of the polarizer and the plane mirror can reflect light
back to the original trajectory with the same degree of transverse
shift. Conversely, light for horizontal polarization in regions I and
IV can be transmitted through the two successive polarizers. 50%
of the incident light passes through the cloak device for the obser-
vation of the background image behind the cloak structure owing
to splitting the polarization of light, while an image projection is
enabled by using the other 50% of the light.
For the white number “1” that is positioned at port 4 with the
polarizer (Pn,1) that transmits vertical polarization, the horizontally
polarized light is blocked by the polarizer while the vertical polari-
zation of light gets reflected by another polarizer (Po,2) so that the
number “1” appears only in region I. Conversely, the number “2” is
located at port 9 without the polarizer (Pn,1) so that the polarizer
(Po,3) transmits horizontal polarization that is then reflected by
FIG. 10. (a) Schematic of a cloaking device comprising polarizers and flat mirrors. (b) Optical image showing the on-axis view of the experimental setup where a yellow
bar is placed in the cloaked region and a toy car is located behind the cloak. Figure reproduced with permission from Banerjee et al., Sci. Rep. 6, 38965 (2016). Copyright
2016 Springer Nature Limited.
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mirror (M3), but the polarizer (Po,3) reflects the vertical polariza-
tion, thereby allowing the image “2” to appear in regions III and
IV. Figure 10(b) shows the experimental implementation of the
cloak device, where a toy car can be viewed through the cloak
structure without viewing a yellow cylindrical object that is located
in the middle of the displacement.
In addition to the optical cloaking devices outlined above,
mirrors can also be used to hide an acoustic absorber consisting of a
sparse arrangement of sound-resonators.70 Each resonator has a
diamond shape with each plane having a reflective mirror. The light
paths in the presence of the sound absorber are recovered with an
even number of light reflections at the mirrors on neighboring reso-
nators; thus, there is no overall image flip. The image behind the
sound absorber is seen for the view angle of the near-normal direc-
tion, while the sound absorption performance is preserved.
B. Prism-based cloaking designs
Refraction is the change in direction of wave propagation
when it passes from one medium to another in which it has a dif-
ferent speed. The refractive indices of two different media deter-
mine the degree of wave bending, which is described by Snell’s law.
Redirecting light by refraction can be obtained using prisms, mag-
nifying glasses, and lenses. An object can be concealed by bending
light around a cloaked region, which is also easily achievable using
refracting optical elements such as prisms.68 Figure 11(a) shows the
top view of the setup of a cloak structure based on Snell’s law, con-
sisting of two L-shaped water-filled tanks. The direction of the col-
limated light rays parallel to the optical axis is shifted away from
the optical axis at the first interface with water based on Snell’s law
and is then shifted back parallel to the optical axis at the second
interface of the first tank by means of a transverse shift relative to
the original path.
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FIG. 11. (a) Schematic of a cloaking device consisting of two L-shaped water-filled tanks. Optical images showing (b) an aerial and (c) on-axis views of the experimental
setup where a helicopter is placed in the cloaked region and a truck is located in the background. Figure reproduced with permission from Howell et al., Appl. Optics 53,
1958 (2014). Copyright 2014 The Optical Society of America.
Any object can be concealed in the middle of the transversely
shifted region. The effect of the first water tank is offset by the
second tank, thereby transversely shifting the rays with the same
displacement while allowing them to be parallel to the optical axis.
Figures 11(b) and 11(c) show the aerial and front views of the
experimental observation of the cloak device based on Snell’s law,
which demonstrates that a helicopter can be hidden in the middle
of the displacement (i.e., cloak region) and a truck can be viewed
below the waterline, while the helicopter appears in front of the
truck above the waterline. The water-filled tanks guide light to be
bent around the bottom of the helicopter, bending it back to its
initial trajectory, allowing the truck to appear in its place.
Although many carpet cloaks have been designed based on
the quasi-conformal mapping approach,9 the carpet-cloaking
scheme can also be demonstrated by linear homogeneous transfor-
mations where a virtual coordinate space is divided into many tri-
angular segments and a linear transformation in each segment is
applied. This results in homogeneous material parameters in each
segment so that a cloak structure can be realized at optical wave-
lengths simply using anisotropic materials. A macroscopic cloaking
device operating over the entire visible spectrum has been demon-
strated utilizing birefringence in a natural uniaxial crystal
calcite.71,72 Figure 12(a) shows a schematic of an anisotropic cloak
structure designed by homogeneous coordinate transformation,
where the incident light rays can be reflected without distortion by
restoring both their angle and position for a certain polarization
state of light. Figure 12(b) shows a schematic view of the experi-
mental setup. Images captured using a camera when an anisotropic
cloak is placed on the top of the wedge to be concealed under laser
irradiation at (c) 561 nm, (d) 488 nm, and (e) 650 nm with an inci-
dent angle of 18° are shown in Figs. 12(c)–12(e).
As the anisotropic cloak structure is designed for green light,
the cloaking effect is clearly shown without distortion as shown in
Fig. 12(c), wherein the “MIT” image appears at the same height, as
if the bottom surface of the anisotropic cloak was flat. The color
aberration causes the images obtained for the blue and red light to
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be slightly shifted, which can be minimized by using complemen-
tary dispersion.73
Another cloaking scheme that utilizes anisotropy is an isolated
polygonal cloak for concealing a large object for the entire visible
spectrum by applying the linear polygonal transformation.74
Several sections form the polygon in a virtual space, and a linear
homogeneous coordinate transformation in individual sections
enables the electromagnetic parameters of the cloak to be homoge-
neous, finite, and spatially independent.
For the experimental demonstration of a hexagonal cloak struc-
ture, six natural birefringent crystals with a trapezoidal shape are
cemented together, where each crystal operates in the incident direc-
tion. The side and top views of the cloaking device are shown in
Fig. 13(a). The experimental setup, where a glass tank which filled
with a translucent liquid contains a yellow pillar as a concealed object
placed at the center of the hexagonal cloaking structure, is shown in
Fig. 13(b). Figure 13(c) shows the captured image without distortion,
which is placed in the same location as the objects. A symmetric
pattern of the cloak structure allows the hexagonal cloak to work for
incident rays from the other five directions. The proposed polygonal
cloaking device works for light rays from all observation angles.
Because anisotropy in a birefringent crystal is required for the
two aforedescribed cloak structures, they work for a specific polari-
zation. This difficulty can be resolved by employing the linear
polygonal transformation with the ray optics approximation, where
only isotropic materials are needed for experimental demonstra-
tion.14 Consequently, it works for arbitrary polarizations in multi-
ple directions of incident light and also for a wide range of optical
wavelengths using incoherent natural light.
A six-directional, phase-preserving hexagonal cloak with a
central hexagon region as the cloak area, which can hide a fish in
an aquatic environment, comprises six isosceles triangles of an iso-
tropic glass with α = 13° at the apex and six isosceles triangles of
air with β = α + 60° at the apex, as shown in Fig. 14(a). Figure 14(b)
shows the experimental setup where a fish tank is filled with water.
Dynamic scenes of the fish swimming inside and outside the cloak
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FIG. 12. (a) Schematic of an anisotropic cloak structure designed by a homogeneous coordinate transformation. (b) Experimental characterization. Images with the aniso-
tropic cloak structure on the top of the wedge to be hidden (c) at 561 nm, (d) 488 nm, and (e) 650 nm. Figure reproduced with permission from Zhang et al., Phys. Rev.
Lett. 106, 033901 (2011). Copyright 2011 American Physical Society.

region of the aquatic environment are shown in Fig. 14(c). The fish cloak that can conceal macroscopic objects for fully polarized
become undetectable, and the green plants behind the cloak region visible light has also been demonstrated by applying a 3D homoge-
are not obstructed when the fish swim inside the cloak, which neous polyhedral transformation and a spatially invariant refractive
works for incident rays from six different observation angles. A 3D index discretization method.74

FIG. 13. (a) Optical images of a simplified hexagonal cloak structure designed using linear polygonal transformation. (b) Experimental setup where a yellow pillar is placed
in a cloaked region. (c) Image showing the on-axis view through the hexagonal cloak. Figure reproduced with permission from Chen and Zheng, Sci. Rep. 2, 255 (2012).
Copyright 2012 Springer Nature Limited.

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FIG. 14. (a) Ray diagram of light passing through a cloak structure designed using linear polygonal transformation with ray optics approximations. (b) Experimental setup.
Experimental observation of a fish swimming through the aquatic ray cloak. (c) The main body of the fish in the cloaked region is hidden, while the tail of the fish outside
the cloaked region is observable. (d) Only the head of the fish outside the cloaked region is visible. (e) The main body of the fish is visible. (f ) The whole fish swimming
out of the cloaked region is visible. Figure reproduced with permission from Chen et al., Nat. Commun. 4, 2652 (2013). Copyright 2013 Springer Nature Limited.

C. Lens-based cloaking designs of rays through the optical system,15

The beam diameter of the propagation light can be squeezed    
by using a lens to significantly reduce the overall dimensions of the A B 1 L/n
¼ , (4)
cloak device (i.e., a higher cloaking ratio) compared to previous C D perfect cloak
0 1
designs constructed with mirrors and prisms. A perfect cloak
system in the paraxial approximation—assuming that the rays show where L is the length of the cloaking device and n is the refractive
a minimum deviation with respect to the center axis of the index of the surrounding medium.
system—can generate an image with unity magnification, zero Figure 15(a) shows a ray trace through a perfect cloak75 struc-
transverse and longitudinal shifts, and no aberrations as compared ture in paraxial approximation, requiring at least four lenses. Light
to an actual object. “ABCD” matrices can describe the propagation is guided around a cloak region by the lenses, and an extended

FIG. 15. (a) Schematic of a paraxial ray optics cloaking device with a cloaked region (shaded) between the first and last lenses. (b) Image showing the front view of the
paraxial cloaking device. (c) Experimental setup. Figure reproduced with permission from Choi and Howell, Opt. Express 22, 29465 (2014). Copyright 2014 The Optical
Society of America.

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FIG. 16. (a) Schematic of a cloaking design consisting of achromatic cylindrical lenses and flat mirrors with a square-shaped cloaked region. (b) Experimental setup. (c)
Image showing the on-axis view of the cloaking device.
cylindrical area between the lenses where no rays pass (shaded
orange) represents the cloaked region. For the experimental dem-
onstration, a perfect paraxial cloak system is constructed using
off-the-shelf achromatic doublets consisting of a combination of
positive and negative lenses capable of drawing focal points at
various wavelengths closer to each other, that is, by means of the
opposite chromatic aberration behaviors of the two constitutive
lenses with anti-reflection coatings at visible frequencies to mitigate
the aberrations of the image. Figure 15(b) presents an on-axis view
of a practical paraxial cloak, revealing that the background grid
image is seen while a hand is cloaked in varying directions.
Figure 15(c) shows the experimental setup of a rotationally sym-
metric lens-only paraxial cloak system.
By adding plane mirrors to the four-lens cloak system
described above, the overall cloak system can be significantly com-
pacted with a modified cloak region shape. Achromatic doubles are
used to minimize both chromatic and spherical aberrations.
Considering that light rays between side lenses are parallel, the
most straightforward solution to further correct the chromatic aber-
ration is to elongate the cloak system along the y-direction to
obtain an optimized layout with the least aberration.
Ray-tracing simulation using commercial software (Zemax
OpticStudio), where achromatic cylindrical lenses are employed,
has been conducted. In the simulation setup, light rays are incident
from the left-hand side to the detector on the right-hand side along
the y-axis. A schematic top view of the cloaking design is shown in
Fig. 16(a). For simplicity, the plane mirrors are assumed to be thin
planes of negligible thickness in the simulation, the mirrors having
an orientation of 45° with respect to the x- or y-direction.
As an experimental demonstration, a cloak system was built
using commercially available spherical achromatic lenses
(AC508-080-A and AC080-010-A, Thorlabs Inc.), as shown in
Figs. 16(b) and 16(c), where a part of the background Toyota
emblem can be seen through the cloak without aberrations, which
is consistent with the simulation results.
The mass and volume of a lens material can be significantly
reduced with easy scalability by using Fresnel lenses, although it
is found to be difficult to achieve a clear image using a Fresnel
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lens due to diffraction occurring at the edges of concentric rings on
the lens surface as compared to the conventional lenses.68
Figure 17(a) depicts a schematic consisting of four converging
Fresnel lenses in series, where the separation distance between two
Fresnel lenses is twice the focal length and two sets of Fresnel
lenses are used to create an upright image. Figure 17(b) shows
another schematic view, where two diverging lenses are used in the
middle of the cloaking device so that light cannot pass through a
focal point, leading to the correct image. As one set comprising the
Fresnel lens and a diverging lens allows the light to be collimated
with a reduced spot size, the distance between the two sets of
lenses can be large; thus, being able to achieve a longitudinal exten-
sion of the cloaking region. The schematic shown in Fig. 17(a)
experimentally demonstrates the two Fresnel lenses in the middle
of the cloak device mounted together, where the tail of the helicop-
ter is placed in the cloaked region and a red truck is located
behind the cloak structure. Figure 17(c) displays the on-axis view
showing that the tail of the helicopter is not visible as it is in the
cloaked region, while the rear part of the truck behind the
helicopter can be seen.
D. Digital technology-based cloaking designs
Although many interesting cloaking schemes have been pro-
posed and experimentally demonstrated, it has been difficult
achieving broad bandwidth and a large field-of-view (FOV) simul-
taneously. This problem can be addressed by employing widely
available digital cameras and digital displays that allow information
to be separated into discrete sections.76 After scanning the back-
ground with a camera, the captured data are encoded so that a dis-
tinctive view of a particular point in the background is provided by
each pixel on the screen for a specific location of an observer.
Performing this for many views with lenticular lenses can create
numerous images of the background corresponding to the observer
at different positions.
Figures 18(a) and 18(b) show a schematic of a digital integral
cloak. It consists of an input surface—comprising a combination of
the lenslet array and detector plate to capture the incident rays—
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FIG. 17. (a) Schematic of a cloak structure comprising Fresnel lenses. (b) Experimental cloaking schematic consisting of converging and diverging lenses. (c) Image
showing the on-axis view through the cloaking device. Figure reproduced with permission from Howell et al., Appl. Optics 53, 1958 (2014). Copyright 2014 The Optical
Society of America.
and an output surface encompassing the lens array and the display
array to display the light rays as if they pass through ambient space.
Any macroscopic object in the visible light can be hidden when it
is placed between the input and output surfaces. A superpixel that
is located at the focusing plane of the lenslet array corresponds to
every discretization in space, and isolated pixels for identifying
individual ray angles are included in every superpixel.
The display plate reverses the effect of the detection scheme
described above. Digital imaging and display technologies posi-
tioned on the surface of the cloak structure are enabled by discre-
tized cloaking, which is called “digital cloaking.” The experimental
setup, where the incident rays are captured by horizontally scan-
ning the background with the input camera—the output rays being
emitted from the lenslet array on the display screen along with the
cloak region between the input and output planes—is shown in
Figs. 18(c) and 18(d). Figures 18(e)–18(h) show screenshot images
by a viewer moving horizontally at various viewing angles ranging
from −4.1° to 6.7°, while Figs. 18(e0 )–18(h0 ) show the same back-
ground images without the cloak system, representing 10.8° of the
total 13.4° viewing range.
E. Discussions
Although metamaterial- and metasurface-based cloaks are
demonstrated using a series of complex and expensive fabrication
methods over a very small area within a narrow wavelength range,
easy implementation using commercially available optical elements
is one of the key points in favor of ray optics-based cloaks. The
mirrors, prisms, and polarizers work effectively across the entire
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visible wavelength spectrum and are easily available from vendors.
The mirror-, prism-, and polarizer-based cloaking designs offer a
more efficient method for cloaking in terms of simplicity and cost.
Moreover, the cloaking ratio—defined as the ratio of the area of the
cloaked region to the area of the entire cloak device for
metamaterial- and metasurface-based cloaking structures—is rela-
tively small, making them difficult to apply to practical applications
as compared to mirror-, prism-, and polarizer-based cloaking
devices. To further improve the cloaking ratio, the beam diameter
of the propagating light can be compressed using a lens to mini-
mize the total size of the cloak structure relative to the previous
cloaking designs constructed from mirrors and prisms. However,
the acceptance angle of the lens is very narrow, so a cloak system
implemented with lenses offers a narrow FOV that can be
improved by utilizing digital integral cloaking. While reducing the
reflection in metamaterial- and metasurface-based cloaking devices
is one of the biggest challenges, convenient broadband anti-
reflection coatings with high efficiency are readily available for ray
optics-based cloaks.
IV. SUMMARY AND PROSPECTS
In this Tutorial, we highlight some of the significant develop-
ments in the area of optical cloaking. Progress in optical cloaking
should be examined against the backdrop of the development of
metamaterials in electromagnetism. At the same time, it is impor-
tant to capture how, when a roadblock appears, ideas have
branched out into proposals backed by new physics. The quest
started with an understanding of a negative refraction medium
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FIG. 18. (a) Zoomed-in portion of (b). (b) Schematic of a digital integral cloak. (c)–(d) Experimental setup. Optical images with the digital integral cloak captured by an
“observer” camera with viewing angles from the screen center to the observer camera: (e) −4.1°, (f ) 0.0°, (g) 2.0°, and (h) 6.7°. (e0 )–(h0 ) Without the digital integral
cloak. Figure reproduced with permission from Choi and Howell, Optica 3, 536 (2016). Copyright 2016 The Optical Society of America.
where the permeability and permittivity are simultaneously nega-
tive.1 Although not available in nature, with the realization of artifi-
cial materials combining negative and positive indices, intriguing
devices were realized.77 In addition to invisibility, the pioneering
early works by Veselago and Pendry et al. also provided methods
of realizing perfect imaging that beat the diffraction limit, branch-
ing out to become an area of research examining subwavelength
focusing.78 Subsequently, the pioneering work by Schurig et al.
afforded a practical path to negative refractive index materials at
microwave frequencies by integrating metallic wires and
split-ring-resonators on printed circuit boards.8 With the confirma-
tion of the very existence of negative refractive indices, a new world
of metamaterials emerged—that of exotic material properties with
subwavelength design parameters. These are significant milestones
that led to a better understanding of subwavelength physics, not
limited to electromagnetism:
(1) The need for the anisotropic and complex functional depen-
dences of material parameters;
(2) The requirement for optical magnetism, which means the mag-
netic response should be equivalent to the electrical response,
leading to significant loss at visible frequencies; and
(3) The requirement that the phase velocity should be faster than
the speed of light in a vacuum, leading to a singularity clause
requiring operation at a single frequency with zero bandwidth.
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All these issues are fundamental limitations of the underlying
physics yet attempts to solve them for a specific situation at the
expense of losing generality has led to remarkable progress. For
example, the complexity of the parameters and the requirement of
optical magnetism are somewhat simplified by introducing the all-
dielectric carpet-cloaking concept. Its operation is limited to 2D
applications and has strict limitations on angular and polarization
responses, compromising phase conservation. Significant progress
has been made in this direction over the years, including the reduc-
tion of anisotropy to a minimum, the broadening of the operating
bandwidth, and the elimination of the ground plane to hide a free-
standing object.31,35 More recently, carpet-cloaking devices have
been represented as graded inhomogeneous metasurfaces,44 the
introduction of which has immense potential to envision low-
profile skin-like ultrabroadband cloaking devices in the future.
Conversely, mantle and plasmonic cloaks use simplistic isotropic
materials that can achieve a broader operational bandwidth com-
pared to transformation optics methods. Both methods reduce the
dominant terms in the multipole expansion of the scattered field
using a shell with opposite polarizability.79 The main limitation of
this approach remains the size of the cloaked region, which has
been addressed by combining active metasurfaces, such as
non-Foster elements that have shown potential to realize a thin
low-profile cloak with broadband and no limitation on angles.80
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We should point out challenge (3)—the requirement that the
phase velocity should be faster than the speed of light in a vacuum,
while reducing singularities in transformation optics cloaks—
remains one of the most challenging issues. To that end, Leonhardt
and Tyc proposed a non-Euclidian transformation approach that
completely removes the requirement of superluminal propagation
to achieve broader bandwidth and all-angle operation.30 This
approach compromises the phase conservation requirement, which
is only noticeable using precise interferometric measurements,
making it potentially useful for applications where the human eye
is the primary detector. However, no experimental work has been
reported to confirm this concept owing to the complexity of practi-
cal design challenges.
Challenge (2) is a major barrier in the design of cloaks at
visible frequencies. Strong optical magnetism is necessary to engi-
neer the permeability at these frequencies. However, in typical
metamaterials, the resonant frequency is linearly dependent on the
size of the unit cells (such as a split-ring-resonator), requiring
extremely miniaturized fabrication at higher frequencies. Such pro-
posals with paired nanorod and metal-dielectric-metal fishnet
structures are predicted to suffer from significant loss; conse-
quently, they have never been directly observed.
The preceding discussion suggests that despite invisibility
cloaking being a breakthrough in modern electromagnetics, a
human-scale perfect cloak functional across the entire visible spec-
trum is still a pipe dream. In this respect, Alu et al. concluded that
the main issues are related to fundamental causality and passivity
limitations irrespective of specific cloaking techniques; that is, it
would be impossible to realize ultimate stealth-like devices in this
way.81 Inherent limitations in terms of linearity, time-invariant,
and passive media can be addressed by utilizing active and non-
linear systems.62,82 Several proposals have been made, although the
applicability of these cloaks to daily life remains questionable.
Consequently, the class of ray optics cloaking devices outlined in
Sec. III, although not perfect, appears practical for many applica-
tions where a large object needs to be rendered invisible. However,
the compactness of these devices remains a challenge, making it
essential that new ideas continue to be developed.
Despite the many challenges outlined herein, it is undeniable
that in recent years, optical invisibility has become a fact rather
than ideas from fiction books. Useful cloaking devices have been
successfully realized beyond electromagnetics including acoustics,
thermal, and fluidic devices, owing to their low-loss physical char-
acteristics compared to optical devices. While most of the studies
focus on fundamental physics and cloaking device proof of concept
designs, it is worth pointing out that the need for invisibility in
modern society will remain high in the future. Starting from
obvious applications in areas such as modern warfare, surveillance,
blind-spot removal in vehicles, spacecraft, and highly efficient solar
cells, applications in sensing and display devices are virtually
endless. While limitations in causality and passivity require funda-
mental breakthroughs in physics, there is great potential in taking
advantage of recent developments in artificial intelligence and addi-
tive manufacturing to improve low-profile practical passive or
active cloaks tuned for specific application scenarios.
The design of metamaterials and metasurfaces is a multi-
dimensional complex optimization of the shapes and sizes of
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constituent materials that define the meta-atom for a specific oper-
ation. Typically, these designs originate intuitively but are limited
by the frameworks of computationally expensive full-wave electro-
magnetic simulators and traditional nanofabrication techniques.
The same can be said of large cloaks made using geometrical
optics, where geometrical elements such as lenses, prisms, polar-
izers, and Fresnel optics must be optimized to reduce spherical and
chromatic aberrations for all angles while maintaining a low physi-
cal profile.
In recent years, the growth in computational power and
improvements in algorithms, combined with unparalleled surges in
the collection and storage of large datasets, have led to renewed
interest in the topic of artificial intelligence. Machine learning algo-
rithms have become smarter in discovering hidden patterns in
multi-dimensional datasets, resulting in classification, regression,
clustering, and problem dimension reduction, all of which is practi-
cally impossible by human means alone. Consequently, machine
learning algorithms have been successfully implemented in
complex situations such as navigating self-driving vehicles, natural
language processing to read and interpret text and images, and the
discovery of new drugs.83 In research fields such as biology, medi-
cine, and materials, the use of these algorithms is expanding our
horizons with faster discoveries by leveraging existing fundamental
models and traditional know-how.
More recently, the area of metamaterials has also followed this
trend and rightfully so.84–88 Machine learning techniques are
already being adopted in other areas of optics and nanophoton-
ics.89 In the context of designing a practical cloaking device, in
addition to solving an inverse design problem, algorithms can be
powerful tools to predict and analyze the optical responses of
cloaking devices or detectors without time-consuming and expen-
sive simulations, which will permit the possibility of “intelligent
invisibility” that is adaptive to movements, shapes, and the envi-
ronment. Recently, in a pioneering work, Qian et al. demonstrated
an artificial-neural-network-embedded active metasurface micro-
wave cloak capable of responding to changing incident wave-fronts
and backgrounds in milliseconds without any human interven-
tion.58 Machine learning methods can also be used to design
optical elements that have improved and tailored properties so that
they can be used without aberrations for the entire visible spectrum
over large areas. This is particularly true for the geometric optics-
based cloaks outlined in Sec. III.
In ray optics cloaking devices, optical components such as
mirrors, prisms, lenses, etc., have a limited range of refractive
media. Consequently, the flexibility of the acceptance angle remains
narrow. While bulk optics helps to confirm life-size cloaking con-
cepts at a theoretical level, actual implementation usually suffers
from a small cloaking ratio. To that end, the use of active compo-
nents such as displays has been adopted in some cases. Moreover,
each optical component of various design geometries can also be
replaced using these optimized metamaterial- and metasurface-
based elements, thereby significantly reducing the overall size of
the existing bulk ray optics cloak structures. In addition, materials
(active or passive), properties, geometries, and their combinations
can be realized using artificial intelligence.
It is worth mentioning that in addition to the design chal-
lenges, rapid prototyping and manufacturing of metamaterial
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T. Ergin, N. Stenger, P. Brenner, J. B. Pendry, and M. Wegener, Science 328,
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Research Grant. This work was also supported by the National 36
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Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the 37
J. Zhang, L. Liu, Y. Luo, S. Zhang, and N. A. Mortensen, Opt. Express 19,
Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2019R1F1A1062380). This 8625 (2011).
38
research was supported by Basic Science Research Program M. Gharghi, C. Gladden, T. Zentgraf, Y. Liu, X. Yin, J. Valentine, and
through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) X. Zhang, Nano Lett. 11, 2825 (2011).
funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology
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DATA AVAILABILITY 41
B. Orazbayev, N. M. Estakhri, M. Beruete, and A. Alu, Phys. Rev. B 91, 195444
The data that support the findings of this study are available (2015).
from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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