Novel invisibility cloak demonstrated using small antennas

11/12/2013 - 00:00

 Invisibility cloaking is no longer the stuff of science fiction: two researchers in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering have demonstrated an effective invisibility cloak that is thin, scalable and adaptive to different types and sizes of objects.

Professor George Eleftheriades and PhD student Michael Selvanayagam have designed and tested a new approach to cloaking—by surrounding an object with small antennas that collectively radiate an electromagnetic field. The radiated field cancels out any waves scattering off the cloaked object. Their paper ‘Experimental demonstration of active electromagnetic cloaking’ appears today in the journal Physical Review X.

“We’ve taken an electrical engineering approach, but that’s what we are excited about,” says Eleftheriades. “It’s very practical.”