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Invisibility cloak
The magic of metamaterials, through optics and electromagnetism.

Literature review written by ALLIBE Maud, JANECZEK Elea and SERRE-COMBE

Arnaud, Physics-Chemistry-Mathematics-Mechanics International students.

Distortion of light waves around a spherical object,

making it invisible for an external observer.

Bachelor of Science and Technology Department,

Grenoble Alpes University,
480 Avenue Centrale,
38400, Saint-Martin-d'Hères.

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Abstract
Since antiquity with for instance, Plato and the ring of Gyges until nowadays
with the famous JK Rowling’s novels Harry Potter, invisibility has always been
intriguing and fascinating humans. Indeed, this characteristic could be used in different
fields and in particular for military purposes. However, making this phenomenon real
is not as easy as waving a magic wand. Rendering an object invisible has been a long
journey for physicists and it is not perfectly accomplished yet. This review will present,
different techniques to cloak objects, using metamaterials and metasurfaces, their
applications and their limits. These new types of materials represent one of the most
appealing solutions to invisibility. Since their first fabrication in the early 2000’s
metadevices have been improved drastically, they enable scientists to render
undetectable objects but they are still far from a supple device which could make a
person disappear to the human eye. For the next coming years and decades, the main
objective would be to enhance the design of the cloak to enlarge its scale of functioning
to make macroscopic objects undetectable in the visible light spectrum.

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Table of content

Abstract .................................................................................................... 2
Table of content ........................................................................................ 3
Introduction .............................................................................................. 4
1. Some optical and physical concepts ...................................................... 4
1.1. Notions of light and visible object ......................................................................4
1.2. Law of refraction ................................................................................................5
1.3. Metamaterials and metasurfaces ........................................................................6

2. How can an invisibility cloak work? ..................................................... 7

2.1. The first two-dimensional cloaking ....................................................................7
2.2. Optical transformation in three dimensions .......................................................8
2.3. Analogy with mirages.........................................................................................8
2.4. The invisibility carpets .......................................................................................9

3. The realization of an invisibility cloak ................................................ 10

3.1. Realization of a 2-dimensional cloak................................................................10
3.2. Realization of an invisibility carpet ..................................................................11
3.3. The limits of the different cloaking systems .....................................................12

4. The future of the invisibility cloak ...................................................... 13

4.1. The possible solutions and improvements ........................................................13
4.2. Some applications of cloaking ..........................................................................13

Conclusion .............................................................................................. 13
References .............................................................................................. 15

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Introduction
Walking unobserved through the world and commanding invisibility at will is a
power that many humans may have wished for. Hopefully, progress in science never
stops surprising the world with the new techniques in cloaking. Indeed, some
researchers already succeeded to make some objects disappear thanks to invisibility
cloak prototypes. Here, an invisibility cloak traduces a complex system allowing an
object of a certain size to disappear for a human eye or an electromagnetic receptor.
The physical goal of such a device can be first, to delete significantly, in two or three
dimensions, the scattering capacity of the object which must be hidden, but the aim can
be also, to regenerate the diffusion configuration of the background. It is therefore a
complex system which is nowadays far from the convenient ones that can be
encountered in some fantastic movies. However, scientists never stop working on this
interesting purpose that presents a lot of applications, especially for the military forces.
Making an object look invisible can be possible thanks to dozens of methods.
Indeed, cloaking even already exists in nature with the different camouflages
techniques used by some species such as animals or plants capable of changing their
color, but this represents non-adaptative system. An interesting example of cloaking in
nature could be the one of Cystosima, an animal able to reduce the reflected light
making it transparent thanks to its anti-reflective coating (Cronin, 2016). Another
common cloaking principle is the electromagnetic absorber which doesn’t reflect the
waves reaching it by absorbing them thanks to the specific property of its materials (Li
et al., 2019). Therefore, such system can’t be undetectable when they’re not
surrounding by a specific color. This is why the subject is still in the study.
The last decades, researches on nanomaterials had led to some different
knowledges allowing the scientists to construct structures with powerful optical or
electromagnetic abilities. The apparition of metamaterials was the starting point of new
theoretical concepts for cloaking. The main idea is to guide the light by transforming
its path to deflect it around the object to be hidden. However, even if Maxwell’s work
on electromagnetism is making the theoretical computations doable, the construction
of multidimensional devices able to carry out such transformation optics is not yet an
easy task. Working with larger wavelengths and in three dimensions is therefore the
greater challenge for cloaking.

1. Some optical and physical concepts

1.1. Notions of light and visible object

Light is one of the most common physical phenomena that we meet in our
everyday lives. However, its description is not so trivial and it had been causing debates
and arguing within the scientific community for centuries. Indeed, it presents different
behaviors depending on the experiment which is performed. Firstly, it can be described
as rays and beams. It was Euclid (4th-3th century BC), a Greek mathematician, in his
book Optica who outlined first such a behavior. His work represents the basis of
geometrical optics (Brownson, 1981). Then, light also presents wave features, this was
proved in 1801 by T. Young with the slits experiment. Young observed interferences

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when a beam passed through 2 slits which evidenced that light has a wave like behavior.
Thus, light has a wavelength, a frequency and a celerity. Maxwell, thanks to his famous
equations, established that light is actually an electromagnetic wave. It is the visible,
for a human eye, the part of the electromagnetic spectrum (Fig. 1.1.1.) corresponding
to wavelengths between 380 and 750nm (Bisi, 2011). Finally, light can be seen as a
particle as well. It was demonstrated by Einstein in 1905 with the photoelectric effect
(Beech, 2012).

Fig. 1.1.1. Electromagnetic spectrum. All the

light wavelengths are represented on this diagram.
The figure shows the position of visible light on this
spectrum and the repartition of the colors
corresponding to the wavelengths. Visible light only
corresponds to a small part of this spectrum and
the range of wavelengths in which it is included will
represent a challenge for cloaking.

(Image from: https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-detect-the-waves-in-the-electromagnetic-spectrum)

Since we want to design a device capable of making objects invisible, one should
first explain how objects appear to our sight. Firstly, most of the objects do not emit
light but some specific do, they are called light sources. Lamps, stars or fire can be
mentioned as examples. It is from where light beams are issued. The other objects are
visible even if they do not emit light. But this is the light coming from the sources which
makes them visible. Indeed, beams traveling in a medium (air, water...) which reach
the surface of the body are redirected in the initial medium. This phenomenon is called
diffuse reflection (Bisi, 2011). Then, rays can be perceived by eyes (Fig. 1.1.2). The
property of the object will allow to absorb some light wavelengths. The ones that are
not absorbed are emitted to the human eyes as a combination of these wavelengths,
corresponding to a specific color.

Fig. 1.1.2. Surface appearing visible to a

viewer. The light travels from a source to an
object, here a white surface, where the beams
are reflected in different directions of space. The
rays directed towards the viewer’s eyes make the
object visible to him. The surface appears white;
hence, it doesn’t absorb any wavelength.

1.2. Law of refraction

A light beam, traveling in a medium, experiences a straight trajectory but if the

ray arrives at the interface with another medium with a non-zero incident angle
(defined as the angle between the normal of the surface and the ray), its celerity would
change too. Therefore, the ray is bent (Fig. 1.2.1.). This phenomenon is called
refraction, and it is described by Snell’s law: n1sin(θ1)=n2sin(θ2). This formula links θ1
the incident angle, n1 the refractive index of the first medium, and θ2 the refracted angle
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and n2 the refractive index of the second medium. Refractive index is defined as: n=c/v,
it corresponds to the ratio between the speed of light in vacuum c and the speed of light
in the studied medium v (Beech, 2012). This law describing refraction was first
established by Ibn al-Haytham, a Persian mathematician, in 984. Previously a similar
law had been used to characterize this phenomenon, but it was false for large angles.
Ibn al-Haytham introduced the sine function and corrected the equation. However, this
law is named after Dutch physicist Willebrord Snell who first wrote it down in 1621.
(Kwan et al., 2002).

Fig. 1.2.1. Ray diagram for a refraction. This figure

represents the light beam path across an interface of
two media. In this case, it can be deduced from the
angles that the refractive index n2 is bigger than n1 of
the first medium. Indeed, the refracted angle is smaller
than the incident one. This optical concept will be used
for metamaterials in order to impose a direction for the
light coming to an object.

1.3. Metamaterials and metasurfaces

Metamaterials are new composite materials, in other words, they are materials
created by humans. Their properties are different from all natural existing objects. They
are made of common components such as plastic or metal. Like crystals, they are
designed with lattices: a pattern repeated in the three space directions to build the
entire material. This peculiar geometry gives them unusual properties such as a negative
permittivity or permeability. Permittivity is a physical quantity which evaluates the
response of a material or a medium in an electromagnetic field and permeability is the
analogous quantity but in a magnetic field. In nature, any material has both positive
permittivity and permeability. Metamaterials have unusual and unique behavior
towards light. In addition to negative permittivity and permeability, they can also
present negative refraction indices. This particularity makes possible negative
refraction, if so, the ray is bent in the second medium but remains on the same side of
the normal as in the first medium (Padilla et al., 2006). Since metamaterials are
manufactured, it is possible to design a structure to obtain a transformed wave at the
output whose shape can be predicted and controlled.

Metasurfaces are planar applications of metamaterials. They are sheets made of

small structures (the size of a nanometer). When a light beam reaches a metasurface
the ray is refracted; nevertheless, thanks to metamaterials properties, the wave can be
modified and especially its wavefront which is defined as an imaginary surface
representing the corresponding points of a wave that vibrate in unison (Britannica,
2011). Therefore, this wave front is determined by the structure and it is possible to
tailor it in order to obtain a desired result. For instance, it is possible to acquire phase
opposition between the incident and the reflected beam which will destructively
interfere. Consequently, the electromagnetic signal is canceled and the object appears
transparent. (Ji et al., 2019).

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Physical, and more specifically optical concepts being explained, it is then

possible to demonstrate the functioning of a cloaking device using those previous
notions across some assemblies of meta-surfaces.

2. How can an invisibility cloak work?

2.1. The first two-dimensional cloaking

In 2006, a team of theorists and experimenters succeed to produce the first

vanishing device of the size of a DVD. Their researches allowed to make disappear an
object viewed in microwaves of a particular wavelength (Schurig, 2006). Generally
speaking, the cloaking device conceived can be schematized by a circular disposition of
metamaterial layers conducting the electromagnetic waves around a central circular
zone where the object, which can be made invisible, is placed (Fig. 2.1.1.). Each circular
substrate is made of a succession of split-ring resonators which are small structures
proper to metamaterials and producing a certain magnetic response (Fig. 2.1.2.). In
this case, they are conceived in such a way that they create the desired radial variation,
guiding any incident beam around the central cavity. Therefore, what is put in this
cavity is made unseeable by microwaves.

Fig. 2.1.1. Schematic microwave invisibility

cloak. The microwaves (red lines) are emitted
by the source represented by a red circle. They
are reoriented inside a structure of circular
layers made with metamaterials (blue area)
making invisible any object disposed into the
central cavity (orange area). The outgoing rays
are therefore in the continuity of the incident
ones. The structure theoretically cancels any
scattering effect (Beech, 2012).

Fig. 2.1.2. First microwave invisibility

cloak. This photography shows the
metamaterial microwave-cloaking device
developed by the Duke University
researchers: David Smith and David
Schurig. The structure has a diameter of 13
cm, a height of 1 cm and the central cavity
has a diameter of 5 cm (Cho, 2006).

The conception of this cloaking system can be compared as the transformation

of space into a shell. This coordinate transformation is made possible since the
Maxwell’s equation are form-invariant. Consequently, the cavity volume and the cloak
create a set having the properties of an empty space from an external point of view
(Schurig, 2006). Based on those researches, a seeker team of the Michigan
Technological University proposed a similar device but made of glass. The layers present

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resonators conceived with chalcogenide glass. However, this system is also limited to
microwaves radiations. This is why is it necessary to increase the scale of this device in
order to make it operate in visible light. Consequently, it means that the split-ring
resonators must work with smaller radiations.

2.2. Optical transformation in three dimensions

Maxwell’s equations are the key to the optical transformations required to

geometrical distortions. They are the main concept used in the mapping of the
disposition for the metamaterial’s components. In fact, Maxwell demonstrated that
electric and magnetic lines of force are attached to the coordinate system (Fig. 2.2.1.).
By distorting this system, it is then possible to distort the field on which lies a wave.
Getting a desired variation of waves is possible thanks to those equations for which we
can determine the electrical permittivity and the magnetic permeability of the device.
Those parameters are derived from the computation of the desired coordinate
distortion. Hence, it has been shown that electromagnetic fields can be shaped into any
configuration (Beech, 2011). Then, one can conceive a three-dimensional invisibility
cloak based on the principle of the 2-dimensional one by creating the required pattern
for the resonator. It must include the results for the permittivity and permeability
previously determined. However, obtain the ray path for a tree dimensional object such
as the sphere of Fig. 2.2.2. is still presenting some difficulties to concretize in terms of
metamaterials pattern, but this obstacle is purely practical, not theoretical. Researchers
confirm that such system will be developed in less than a decade.

Fig. 2.2.1. Coordinate basis under

distortion. The basis undergoes a
coordinate transformation. The wave ray
represented in red also follows the
rearrangement of coordinates, it is not
linear anymore in the (X, Y) coordinates
system (Beech, 2012).

Fig. 2.2.2. Ray tracing of light waves around a

spherical object. The exterior shell represents a
theoretical new structure of metamaterial layers
dragging the waves in a way that they delete all the
informations on the central sphere. It is therefore
made invisible and since the outgoing rays are
pursuing their path with the same direction as the
incident one, there’s no sign of the existence of the
sphere, there is no scattering (Beech, 2012).

2.3. Analogy with mirages

In nature, one can find a phenomenon of invisibility. This is the case with the
gradient of refractive index of the air. For example, in the desert, the sun rays that
comes from the space to the ground are going through layers of atmosphere with
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different refractive indexes. At low altitude the temperature of the air is much higher,
therefore the refractive index is lower. Consequently, the rays coming from the sun are
bent away from the ground when getting close to it, before reaching the eyes of
someone standing in the desert (Fig. 2.3.1.). Consequently, this person can have the
impression to see a lake, but in reality, it is only the image of the blue of the sky (Cai &
Shalaev, 2010). This implies that there is an invisible region beyond those bent rays.
Here, the variation of temperature with the altitude in the atmosphere can be compared
as a natural cloaking phenomenon.

Fig. 2.3.1. Ray tracing of light

causing a mirage. The beam
issued from the sky is bent upwards
to the eyes of the standing
character. The blue image of the sky
is projected on the sand, creating
the illusion that there is a lake.

(Image from: https://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/M/mirage.html)

2.4. The invisibility carpets

Transformation optics and some abilities to fabricate structures with complex

refractive index profiles are now making possible the creation of devices with powerful
optical properties, such as cloaks for which the object and the cloak concealing the
object are made invisible (Ergin et al., 2010). The simplest cloaking system is the
invisibility carpet, an equipment able to make an object undetectable. Even if this device
doesn’t satisfy the idea of “seeing trough”, it offers a first proposition for optical
cloaking. Generally speaking, this can be possible by reflecting the light rays on this
object in a way that makes it unseeable. In order to do so, the use of metamaterials will
therefore be required. The main idea is to obtain a cloak covered of nanoantennas (Fig.
2.4.1.). This device makes the cloaking easier since the object is on the floor. Indeed, it
will only be necessary to restore the wavefront as if it was reflected from a flat surface
(Ni et al., 2015). Each nanoantenna will act individually in order to reorient the
reflected light beam as if the object was not there. They can be considered as phase-
shifting resonant elements disposed on the cloak surface.

Fig. 2.4.1. Schematic meta surface

skin cloak. The surface is recovered with
adaptive nanoantennas (represented
here in gold) allowing a restoration of
the light beam (symbolized with the red
arrows) as if there was no bump. The
characteristic of each nanoantenna is
determined algorithmically according to
its position relatively to the flat surface
(Ni et al., 2015).

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The cloaking carpet corresponds to the case of a spatial transformation with what
is called a conformal mapping. This means that pairs of grid lines intersecting at 90° are
conserved during such transformation (Cai & Shalaev, 2010). The distortions caused by
the bump are counterbalanced by the metamaterial layer. To make an invisibility cloak
work properly, the refractive index of this layer must be adapted so that any incident
light beam behaves as if it had been reflected from the initial flat surface of the floor.
Following this idea, one can imagine a rectangular (Fig. 2.4.2.) or prism (Fig. 2.4.3.)
shaped carpet. Here, the notion of refractive index is the key for the functioning of the
cloaking carpet. It has to present different values inside the cloaking device since the
reorientation of the incident beam is not the same everywhere. Therefore, in order to
restore the light for any incident beam, the refractive index must be adapted in the
different regions of the cloaking layer. One gets a material presenting a gradient field
of different indices.

Fig. 2.4.2. Ray tracing of the light beams. The rays are reflected on: (i) the ground, (ii)
the deformed surface, and (iii) the deformed surface on which an optical carpet is placed.
The grey region represents the area where the transformations occur (Liu et al., 2009).

Fig. 2.4.3. Repartition of refractive index in

a prism cloaking device. The incident beam
arriving on the upper part of the prism must
encounter a refractive index higher than the one
of the initial media (air for example). In opposite
way, the one arriving along the ground must
encounter a lower refractive index in order to be
bent upward (over the bump created by the
object) and then downward before it pursues its
initial path along the ground (Zhou, 2011).

Since the theoretical functioning of cloaking has been explained it is then

interesting to present the construction of some invisibility cloak through an historical
and more concrete approach.

3. The realization of an invisibility cloak

3.1. Realization of a 2-dimensional cloak

As explained previously, the cloak is made of metamaterials endowed with

specific unintuitive properties, such as negative refractive index. They thus reverse the
propagation of an electromagnetic wave. To build their metamaterial cloaking device,
David Smith and David Schurig, from Duke University, relied on the work of theoretical
physics specialist John Pendry. The researcher theorized a split ring resonator: a
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composite material made of small loops of copper wire enclosed in a fiberglass substrate
mimicking the magnetic properties of a conventional magnetic substance. The loops,
according to their size and geometry, would be able to deliver the correct magnetic
response. David Smith and colleague Willy Padilla attempted the engineering of such a
material, and succeeded with the construction of miniature coils acting as if they were
naturally magnetic when placed in a magnetic field. Following these results, John
Pendry, David Smith and David Schurig associated to create the first functional
invisibility cloak, able to hide a copper cylinder placed within it, at first from microwave
detection, and then from a wider wave-band. The device was made of 10 cylinders,
composed of unit cells (Schurig et al., 2006). Each cylinder is three-unit cells high. The
space between each cylinder was determined so that an integer number of unit cells
suits exactly in each item. The measurements of the unit cell differ from one cylinder
to another (Fig. 3.1.1.).

Fig. 3.1.1. Unit cell composing a metalayer of

the cylindrical structure. The length indicated on
the drawing is maximal at 2.199 mm for the
external cylinder and minimal at 1.654 mm for the
internal one. Varying those two parameters
modifies the permeability tensor of the unit cell,
which is almost negligible on the internal cylinder
(0.003) and reaches its maximum 0.279 on the
external one. The curve radii r decreases from
0.260 mm on the internal cylinder to 0.116 mm.
a𝜃 is equal to 10/3 mm, the edge length l is 3 mm
and the trace width w is 0.2 mm. (Schurig et al.,
2006).

3.2. Realization of an invisibility carpet

John Pendry and colleague Jensen Li looked into the matter of a cloak hiding an
item from visible light. They discussed a cloak that would make the object underneath
seem so small that it gives the impression to disappear. Three possibilities were
conceivable. The first one was to reduce the cloaked object to a point. The second was
to crush it to a line. These two possibilities make the device invisible for radiation,
however very specific materials are needed. The third possibility, crushing the device
to a conducting sheet, was chosen. The idea of an invisibility carpet was born. Although
an invisibility carpet restricts the possibilities of hiding, as its goal is to mimic a flat
ground plane, it does not imply singular parameters of a material, and the latter may
be isotropic. Hence, isotropic dielectric metamaterials are sufficient to engineer the
cloaking device. With such a material, a device hidden under the invisibility carpet will
be perceived as thin as a metal plate, when placed in a dielectric media such as silica.
The cloaking carpet constructed (Fig. 3.2.1.), of length 500mm, height 106mm, and
width 10mm, was manufactured to receive an object in its central section, of dimensions
250 by 96 mm. It will lie in a background material with refractive index nb=1.331. As
a result, its refractive indices n should go from 1.08 to 1.67. To minimize reflection
from its surface, when placed under a microwave beam, an impedance matching layer
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of n from 1 to nb is added to envelop the structure. The whole cloak is counting 10,000
square-shaped elements (Fig.3.2.2.) of width a, 6,000 of them being unique. The length
of a is lower than 2 millimeters, and is a parameter of the refractive index.

Fig. 3.2.1. Photography of the meta

material sample. This image shows the
assembly of a hundred layers covering a
volume where an object can be hidden.
(Liu et al., 2009).

Fig. 3.2.2. Sketch of the items composing the cloaking

device, and their refractive index as a function of their
width. The graph represents the evolution of the relative
refractive index according to the height and width of the
metamaterial square pattern. There is no linear correlation
between those parameters, making the construction of this
structure quite difficult. Overall, for a larger item, the
refractive index will be higher. (Liu et al., 2009).

3.3. The limits of the different cloaking systems

The two-dimensional cloaking device is practically invisible, though from a

microwave of wavelength 3,5 centimeters. It cannot hide from visible light, and the
dimension of the hidden object is limited. Moreover, the approximations made on the
material properties make the invisibility imperfect: the field going through the cloaking
device is slightly reduced in some places situated after it in space.

The invisibility carpet enables to hide small objects from a broad bandwidth:
13GHz to 16GHz. However, the visible bandwidth goes from 400 to 800 THz. Thus, it
will not make the object disappear from visible light. Because of its physical properties,
the shell of metamaterial must be much thicker than the wavelength of the radiation.
Moreover, the carpet cloak will also produce an anomalous image shift of the size of
the height cavity in which the object lies, detectable for careful observers (Fig. 3.3.1.).

Fig. 3.3.1. Comparison of the ray path

diagram between the theory and the reality.
This image shows in solid blue lines the actual path
followed by the light and in dotted red line the
exact path desired to obtained a perfect cloaking.
The shift between the two rays at the output are
making the cloaking detectable due to the height of
the cavity. (Beech, 2011).

The realization of these two cloaking devices being explained it is then important
to see what is the future of the cloaking devices in terms of solutions, alternatives or
applications.
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4. The future of the invisibility cloak

4.1. The possible solutions and improvements

As a result of their previous experiments, J. Pendry and colleagues (Ergin et al.,

2010) designed a three-dimensional cloak able to hide a bump in a gold reflector from
optical wavelengths. Their design uses a bespoke, dielectric woodpile photonics crystal
in a face centered cubic lattice with polymer filling it, and is based on the concept of
the two-dimensional invisibility carpet. The bump to be hidden should be one
micrometer high and 13 micrometers large, for a total thickness of the woodpile
structure of 10 micrometers. The refractive index inside the cloak is controlled with the
proportion of polymer in the woodpile photonic crystal. The researchers questioned
themselves about the expected bandwidth for which the cloaking would be sufficiently
effective, and two hypotheses were made. A very conservative approach would lead to
wavelengths larger than 11 micrometers, while an aggressive and optimistic estimation
would be 1.2 micrometers, which is the limit of the woodpile anomaly. These two
approaches differ by an order of magnitude of 10, and no conclusion was yet made on
the topic. When the bump and the cloak are placed under light beams, the visibility of
the bump is strongly reduced, but not erased, meaning the cloak is still not perfect.

4.2. Some applications of cloaking

Current cloaking devices have limited applications. The two researchers who
achieved the invisibility carpet suggest, among other relevant applications, its use in
the conception of optical integrated circuits. The existing devices could permit an object
eluding radar detection. However, future “true” invisibility cloaks could have a wider
range of functions, for military purposes: to keep soldiers safe, hide armament and for
personal privacy, for example by hiding the owner’s garden from external view.

Conclusion
Numerous researchers are embroiled in the quest for invisibility. However, the
race is more of a long-distance run than a sprint. The world is indeed far from obtaining
an invisibility cloak similar to J.K. Rowling’s creation. The existing apparatuses
manufactured to hide an object are still an encouraging first step to a device able to
mask a body from visible light coming from the three dimensions. These objects have
the property to redirect waves in order for an electromagnetic field crossing it to remain
unchanged, as though there were no objects. However, even if the waves to be deviated
are from a limited bandwidth far from visible wavelengths, there is no doubt that one
day the devices will be compatible with white light spectra. Another main problem faced
is the third dimension of the object: researchers have been able to hide a device from
waves coming from a specific angle, however they did not manage yet to deviate waves
coming from all directions at a time. One more issue is the capacity of the hiding
devices. Can only be masked remarkably small objects in comparison with the human
body. Furthermore, even if the cloak had such a capacity, its usefulness would be
limited. Indeed, current prototypes are made with non-transparent materials, making

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the hidden person unable to see through. The arrival of an invisibility cloak able to
deviate light from a human body is yet on the agenda.
However, all researches on camouflage does not depend on the same technique.
Recently, some Chinese researchers from Shanghai University have created an octopus
inspired material, mimicking its environment (Sparkes, 2021). Made of two layers
having different thermal expansion rates, the fabric is continuously controlling the light
reflected by its surface. The first layer is composed with mixed color pigments while the
second is manufactured to be of the same color of the background. According to the
temperature, the tension of the layers will change, causing small wrinkles and creases
on the material. Sending light on it will warm up the fabric, which will become smooth
again. These creation and elimination of the wrinkles enable the material to reflect
exactly the color wanted. This innovation is of great interest for armies’ uniforms as
they do not need neither sensors nor power to be used, and are thus inexpensive.
One day, the power of invisibility could be part of our everyday life, however is
the population ready to deal with it and its consequences? One should question the
desirability of invisibility before the arriving of the first invisibility cloak.

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References
- Beech, M. (2011). The physics of invisibility: a story of light and deception. New York: Springer.

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