Japanese researchers invent completely transparent material

In a breakthrough that could benefit fields as diverse as networking, photography, astronomy, and peeping, science-types at Japan's Institute of Physical and Chemical Research have unveiled their prototype of a glass-like material that they claim to be 100% transparent. Unlike normal glass, which reflects some of the incoming light, the new so-called metamaterial --composed of a grid of gold or silver nanocoils embedded in a prism-shaped, glass-like material -- uses its unique structural properties to achieve a negative refractive index, or complete transparency. Although currently just a one-off proof-of-concept (pictured, under an electron microscope), mass-produced versions of the new material could improve fiber optic communications, contribute to better telescopes and cameras, or lead to the development of completely new optical equipment.

[AndrewNeo @ May 2nd 2006 2:56PM]

This will make those 'people walking into clear glass panes' videos even funnier.

[Matt @ May 2nd 2006 3:04PM]

What do you think Wonder Woman's airplane was made out of? I think the Justice League should sue.

[Michael @ May 2nd 2006 3:07PM]

more birds flying into windows...

[dan @ May 2nd 2006 3:07PM]

What???? And here i was thinking that 'transparent aluminium' was gonna be the new see-through material of the future!

[Yojimbo @ Oct 10th 2007 5:46PM]

That has already been done (with Alumina [Aluminum Oxide Alloy] anyway)... probably by some asinine bastard from the future who traded it for sheets of plexiglass or something... DAMN YOU TIME-TRAVELING CARPETBAGGERS!!!

READ: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/20033

[j3oomerang @ May 2nd 2006 3:07PM]

this will be great to get the glare from windows off your tv when watching during the daytime

[bryan ribas @ May 2nd 2006 3:08PM]

I feel bad for all the birds now.

[Brent @ May 2nd 2006 3:09PM]

"Now where did I put my completely transparent glasses?"

[enz @ May 2nd 2006 3:12PM]

care for a floating blob of wine?

[Bob @ May 2nd 2006 3:13PM]

big deal, i've developed all kinds of completely transparent stuff..
see right here, this is my completely transparent fully autonomous robot that does my job for me..
and this, I'm proud of this one, it's my completely transparent monster truck that runs on air..

you can't see it? well, it's there, I promise :P

[jmchez @ May 2nd 2006 3:13PM]

I don't think that too many doors or windows are going to be made of this (gold?). It would be like making a patio door out of nikon/canon/zeiss lens glass; crazy expensive and useless once the dust and fingerprints get on it.

[Mojo Yugen @ May 2nd 2006 3:16PM]

The old Saran-Wrap on the toliet gag just got a major, but expensive, upgrade.

[Rus @ May 2nd 2006 3:18PM]

This is the material for the iPod Invisa

[MrTroy @ May 2nd 2006 3:25PM]

This is an old trick. They're trying to get the Emperor's money. Wait... hold on I have that backwards. :-

[bam @ May 2nd 2006 3:38PM]

could "lead to the development of completely new optical equipment".
if they are talking about glasses. dont glasses work on the principal of changing the refractivity to balance out the miscurvature of your eyes. which would mean that this stuff wouldnt even work for glasses b/c there is no refractivity.

[srw985 @ May 2nd 2006 3:40PM]

*walks into patio window

[Brian @ May 2nd 2006 3:40PM]

I see a new clothing fashion trend. Actually, I don't

[Thomas @ May 2nd 2006 3:42PM]

not quite Bam, they put reflective coatings on glasses already to stop glare.. its the shape of the glass that actually does the dirty work..

[srw985 @ May 2nd 2006 3:43PM]

*hot girl walks by wearing transparent clothes

[TMoney @ May 2nd 2006 3:44PM]

If you made a lense out of this stuff, would it be any different than making one out of a flat pice of glass? I can't think of any use for this if thats the case.

[hey4 @ May 2nd 2006 3:47PM]

thinking the same thing bam

[Silver @ May 2nd 2006 3:52PM]

So it's to light as a superconductor is to electrons. Awesome. No more booster stations for fibre.

-KJ

[Quagmire @ May 2nd 2006 3:58PM]

so... if it's completely transparent -- how is it that i can see a photo of it? ;-)

[blurry @ May 2nd 2006 4:02PM]

re: #2 -- don't know but I was very disappointed that her aircraft manufacturer was not also her tailor. :-D And, yes, the Justice League should sue her pants off. Pretty please. Hell, they should take her to the cleaners and even get the shirt off her back. We could only hope.

ok, i'll shut up now.

[Hannah @ May 2nd 2006 4:04PM]

They probably wouldn't make windows out of this stuff, but they could make TV screens out of it (although that would jack up the price, I imagine). Otherwise, I don't imagine that it would see a lot of everyday use in the home. It's just not practical.

It could be useful for a lot of high-tech things like microscopes, observatory telescopes and fiber-optic cables, though. Maybe it could also be used to make special focusing lenses for lasers or something too.

[obm @ May 2nd 2006 4:04PM]

1) Refractivity depends on wavelength, from the picture it seems that they have created a form of resonant cavity like wavechannel, thus it is to be very wavelength limited, depending on the shape of the guide.
2) Negative refractivity is a different concept, notice that refractivity depends on the square root of permittivity and permeability, which are positive values in ordinary tranparent material. If the ratio is negative, then there is something in the material that propagates or channels the wave, which exactly the gold waveguides does. In a completely transparent material the speed of light does not change in medium, thus n=1, and compex counterpart k is 0. Optical equipment is possible, by playing with the waveguide.
3) From wikipedia: The first Superlens (an optical lens employing negative refraction with vastly improved microscopic resolution) was created and demonstrated in 2005 by Xiang Zhang et al of UC Berkeley, as reported in the April 22 issue of the journal Science [1]

Although this is state of the art nanotechnology, don't give up your hope yet, transparent aliminum would still be a bigger achievment.

[John Stracke @ May 2nd 2006 4:11PM]

I'm not sure this will make that much difference to fiber optics. For fiber optic lines, the point of being nearly transparent is to keep the signal from fading over distance. Even in 1993, though, I was reading about fibers that could carry a terabit in the lab over 3000 miles without repeaters.

However, that might have been with optical amplifiers. If you could get rid of those, then long-distance fiber would be even cheaper.

[chris @ May 2nd 2006 4:16PM]

#13 and #18
no, not quite. from http://physics.ucsd.edu/lhmedia/ :
"As an example, a lens made from LHM that would be converging if made from conventional material, will be diverging, and vice-versa. Also, a thick flat plate (window) of LHM can focus radiation from a point source back to a point."

so you could make glasses out it, but the curve needed would opposite of conventional glass, allowing certain very thick glasses to be made with much thiner and lighter material.

[jared @ May 2nd 2006 4:18PM]

my boy's wicked smaht!

-casey affleck

[anon @ May 2nd 2006 4:40PM]

I wonder how this could positively affect solar (energy) technologies?

[Tom @ May 2nd 2006 4:57PM]

I'd prefer more durable, smudge-proof, scratch-proof glass for a camera lense.

[Loony2nz @ May 2nd 2006 4:57PM]

Enz: That's pretty funny. We'd need straws with our wine. It'd be pretty funny trying to find the rim of the glass each time you wanted to take a sip.

[t0dd @ May 2nd 2006 5:18PM]

They go into some extensive detail about its properties. The translated page: http://www.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.riken.jp%2Fr-world%2Finfo%2Frelease%2Fpress%2F2006%2F060406%2Findex.html&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF8
Note: The button at the bottom of that page is the "Next" button.

[DarkFader @ May 2nd 2006 5:18PM]

http://www.ps.missouri.edu/rickspage/refract/refraction.html

[Den @ May 2nd 2006 5:19PM]

Funy to read this a year later after you post this http://www.engadget.com/2005/01/20/canadian-inventor-discovers-x-ray-vision-maybe/

Also funny to read nerds' neurotic humour in reaction to something that their little brain couldn't grasp.

[Soda @ May 2nd 2006 5:41PM]

Re:21

it looks like an electron microscope image.

[Molly @ May 2nd 2006 5:52PM]

oh...

i waas hoping they were talking about fabric...although, im not sure how much of a market there is for see-through clothing, now that i think about it...haha

[Amy Hikari @ May 2nd 2006 5:57PM]

... What if they put it down and then don't remember where they put it?

[Darren Tilley @ May 2nd 2006 5:59PM]

Since fiber optic technology kinda relies on the fact that light reflects off it's surface, which is tied in to the refractive properties of such material, I don't see how this could be used in any way to improve fiber obtic technology.

Am I incorrect? It wouldn't be the first time.

[d3 @ May 2nd 2006 6:11PM]

Seems like it would have to have no reflection, both internally and on the surface, for it to be useful as a lens. If it has no refraction, it can't be a lens.

[TImmah!! @ May 2nd 2006 6:20PM]

transparent, not invisible, people. there is a difference.

[Cybrid @ May 2nd 2006 6:36PM]

#obm: Thanks for your physical explanation, it's the only productive and worth of reading post in all the thread.

[jnasato @ May 2nd 2006 6:55PM]

"38. transparent, not invisible, people. there is a difference."

A 100% transparent material would essentially be invisible, as it would allow all light to pass through it. We can see objects, because light reflects off of them. Perhaps you were thinking of "translucent".

[Matt @ May 2nd 2006 7:13PM]

37 - the coating on fiber optic lines currently is what keeps the signal from bouncing out of the fibers, along with the refractive distance; a similar reflective coating on the outside will do the same thing, preventing loss, it's just inner transmission speeds will be better and losses smaller.

[Clay @ May 2nd 2006 7:32PM]

Finally, the old story about the Emperor will be true...

[Hoffy @ May 2nd 2006 8:30PM]

So wait... if this new material is completely, 100%, transparent, how did they take a picture of it?

I mean, if it's invisible, shouldn't it be, well... invisible?

[Ben @ May 2nd 2006 8:56PM]

This seems like it would be an excellent material for use on displays. The plastic and glass used today for CRT and LCDs are prone to be highly reflectant or have bad glare issues in general. A transparent material with no glare or reflections would be huge. Imagine sitting in front of your LCD tv with a lamp on behind you and not having it reflected in the glass or trying to read your cell phone on an overcast day.

[PicBoy @ May 2nd 2006 9:59PM]

For everyone asking about how they took a pic - its a pic from an electron microscope - when they say 100% transparent I assume that they mean visible light - it seems unlikely you could apply heat to this glass and its temperature wouldn't increase (although that would be cool!) - hence there is no reason why a pic on an electron microscope or via an IR or UV camera the glass wouldn't appear clear as day.

[Octavus @ May 2nd 2006 10:32PM]

It says on the picture it was taken using a 5KeV electron beam.

[Evan @ May 2nd 2006 10:35PM]

Maybe this will take care of lens flare and the 'orb' effect that make people think there's a "spiritual lifeform" that they photographed.