US physicists build teensy 2D cloaking device

Drop what you're doing, friend. Cloaking devices are real now, meaning all we need are force fields and some spandex jumpsuits and we'll be bonafide dwellers of the future. The good news comes to us from physicists at the University of Maryland, lead by Igor Smolyaninov, who successfully cloaked a 10 micron gold ring by bending two dimensions of visible light. This follows up successful research last year that had worked out an invisibility cloak in the electromagnetic spectrum, but is still a far cry from a true 3D cloaking device, since such an object would have to bend light waves both magnetically and electronically simultaneously -- this 2D model is just pushing around "surface plasmons" created out of the light waves. While the tech probably won't make the jump to 3D cloaking, it might be used in computer chips or as a replacement for fiber optics some time down the road, which we suppose is alright.

[foneguy43512 @ Oct 3rd 2007 12:14PM]

LOL I don't see it yet. Maybe I need to hit he bong again.....

[Joe @ Oct 3rd 2007 2:46PM]

"physicists build" holds such little merit with me, it's not even funny.

[DickHardknocks @ Oct 3rd 2007 12:15PM]

soon as I get one, I'm robbing a bank and then slamming Bill Oreilly's head into his desk on Live TV.

[Matt @ Oct 3rd 2007 12:21PM]

Sir, a more noble use does not exist.

[kjb434 @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:34PM]

Yeah,

and after that I can quickly through Hillary, Obama, and Edwards in a wood chipper to prevent the next Bolshevik Revolution.

[Josh @ Oct 3rd 2007 8:36PM]

It's "throw" not "through." How in the world can you spell "Bolshevik" and not "throw?"

[Simon @ Oct 3rd 2007 12:16PM]

Perhaps this could have worked for Nelson de la Rosa...R.I.P.

[Xzavier @ Oct 3rd 2007 12:20PM]

FRAK!!! If the Romulans find out that we are working on a cloaking device... They might violate the Neutral Zone and decide to cross over... gulp!

Damn you Engadget... now everybody knows!

:D

[riggs @ Oct 3rd 2007 12:49PM]

star trek FTW sir

[Xzavier @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:15PM]

Wait... You mean to tell me that *Frak* was not used in Star Trek???

HOLY SH*T... The ROMULANS are here already, and that can only mean one thing... YOU’RE A CYLON!!! ENGADGEEET!!!!!

:P

[paul34 @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:47PM]

Fool! It will equalize the balance of power in this quadrant!

The line gets drawn HERE

http://jamaican3.ytmnd.com/

[matt @ Oct 3rd 2007 2:34PM]

Naw, we're still good. The Treaty of Algeron isn't signed until 2311 so we have time.

[Xzavier @ Oct 3rd 2007 3:31PM]

matt... Come on bro. You don’t think we have that much time do you? We know that the Cylons can take any shape, a human, a robot, even a TOSTER!

I saw how Riggs tried to pass off being human by replacing the "By Your Command" phrase with the word Sir! I'm watching you Riggs! 0_0 And if I catch you doing anything out of the... hey wait a minuet???

Didn't Matt a couple of post up use the word *Sir* as well???

HOLY SH*T... It's an INVASION!!!

I think I now know why some of those iPhones have been bricking themselves after a few minor hacks...

Them ain't iPhones.... GULP!

:P

[goods @ Oct 3rd 2007 12:37PM]

This is the breakthrough Hanes underwear has been waiting for!

[BillyEllen @ Oct 3rd 2007 12:56PM]

Hanes? Who needs them, I'm cloaked!

[Oliver @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:14PM]

They been doing this for years at Area 51!

[Ally @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:30PM]

Really?

Do you often visit Area 51 then?

who knew eh.

[Oliver @ Oct 3rd 2007 4:36PM]

Yes I work there part time testing Alienware pc!

[Randy @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:40PM]

Cool! Strike that one off the list of Star Trek tech that I'll love to have which also consists of:

-Cloning (women like Jackie Guerrido, Katherine Zeta Jones, et al.)
-Warp Drive (go anywhere i want, quickly.)
-Replicators (Make anything I want.)
-Transporter (Steal anything I can't replicate.)
-Phasers. (defend myself)
-Photon/Quantum Torpedoes. (see, Phasers)

[paul34 @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:48PM]

A holodeck would be easier than cloning all those women, you sick perv

:-p

[Randy @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:54PM]

@
My bad. you're right. :-)

[Magallanes @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:47PM]

"...bend light waves..."

I knowned that the only possible way to bend a light wave is "using" a black hole?.

[Chekote @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:52PM]

Or a prism. But black hole is good.

[Tyler @ Oct 3rd 2007 4:59PM]

Don't forget gravity. (Halo around the moon during a total solar eclipse)

[Magallanes @ Oct 3rd 2007 5:22PM]

You can blend using a material for refraction (such a lens) but it's just a damn cheap trick, even third level magician can achieve it. But to obtain a refraction without a external material and just with energy sound really insteresting. And no, neither Moon gravity or Earth gravity is enough to blend the light.

[Derbeste @ Oct 4th 2007 12:00PM]

@Magall

Not so. ANY gravity is enough to bend light. Even YOU are bending light right this instant. It's just so minute that it's completely negligable. Newton's laws ftw.

To bend it perceptively with gravity, you don't need a black hole. A pulsar can do it too with a lot of gravity and a LOT of speed.

[Wwhat @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:49PM]

Hi I'm a poor nigerian widow of a russian cloakingtechnology researcher, I have the sum of 10 (ten) million dollar that I need DARPA's help to secure, so if you work for DARPA please give us 2 billion funding and you'll get 20% if the resulting technology in about a thousand years, maybe.
I also have a bridge in new york city that I unfortunately have to sell, contact me now!

[Skorn @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:52PM]

Actually, the 10 micron gold ring IS the cloaking device. I saw this on New Scientist yesterday, and the ring in effect "grabs" the light on one side, and releases it on the other, completely unchanged, but scaleing and 3d introduces problems apparently.

[captain lag @ Oct 3rd 2007 4:52PM]

The ring is the cloaking device? Wow! Could this be the one ring to rule them all? WE must destroy the precious...oh..er...the ring in the fires of mount doom!!

[Kurt @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:57PM]

Hey, I go to the University of Maryland! Woooooo! Go Terps!

[XboxBoy @ Oct 3rd 2007 2:02PM]

The Treaty of Algeron forbids Star Fleet from developing cloaking technology! We are in violation!!!

[HammRadioLover @ Oct 3rd 2007 2:13PM]

How can we be in violation of a treaty that is FICTIONAL!? Star Trek is not reality, friend. Besides, everyone knows the Beovians are the forerunners of this cloaking technology.

[Witz @ Oct 3rd 2007 2:19PM]

@HammRadioLover
Well, speaking of fictional, how are those fictional friends on the other end of your hamm radio? And Bababooie to ya all!

[Hawk @ Oct 16th 2007 11:15AM]

Technically speaking, since Star Fleet has yet to be formed, "WE" are not in violation ;)

couldn't resist ...

[Andrew @ Oct 3rd 2007 2:43PM]

Somebody call for an exterminator?

[Ransom @ Oct 3rd 2007 3:26PM]

Never know what hit 'em.

[Vesh @ Oct 3rd 2007 3:56PM]

You called down the thunder, now reap the whirlwind.

[Matt E. @ Oct 3rd 2007 4:58PM]

"Fire it up!"

[MikeG @ Oct 9th 2007 4:43PM]

...what?

[Twitchy @ Oct 3rd 2007 3:20PM]

God knows that an object only ten microns across is hard enough to find if you drop it, but now the damn thing cloaks? WTF? It'll be like looking for a lost contact lens in a swimming pool.

[Magallanes @ Oct 3rd 2007 5:31PM]

There are three possible goals :

-The method to "cloak" can be used in other kind of applications (or in other scale).
-The method to blend the light can be used for laser lens (ex. bluray).
-They just bluffing and spend money in a useless matter just to be published in Nature.

[o29 @ Oct 3rd 2007 7:42PM]

Call the shot.

[Orpheus @ Oct 3rd 2007 10:00PM]

The past tense of lead is led...

[great_news @ Oct 3rd 2007 10:33PM]

Are we talking about LOTR part 5?

I thought that ring is already destroyed ....

[trongod05 @ Oct 4th 2007 1:01AM]

No ship that small has a cloaking device!