Ten Years On, Invisibility Cloaks Are Close To Becoming A Manufacturable Reality

Technology





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A new invisibility cloak can hide objects using an ultrathin layer of nanoantennas that reflect off light. Are humans next? Courtesy of Xiang Zhang group, Berkeley Lab/UC Berkeley, CC BY

Invisibility has long been one of the marvels in science fiction and fantasy – and more recently in physics. But while physicists have figured out the concept for how to make invisibility cloaks, they are yet to build a practical device that can hide human-sized objects in the way that Harry Potter’s cloak can.