"Nothing to see here" - 100% Transparent Metamaterial

[kurohinge1]

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.

. . . 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 . . . more

[Taro Toporific]

Mo' betta'

[INDENT]
Romulan-style cloaking device
Cunning 'anomalous localised resonance' plan
theregister.co.uk, 6 May...Trekkies among you don your Romulan cozzies and rush for a copy of the Royal Society publication in which Nicolae Nicorovici and Graeme Milton expound their cloak of invisibility, be aware it's very much a paper concept, currently applicable only to small objects of a particular range of shapes.
The theory is based on "anomalous localised resonance" - analogous to the effect by which a vibrating tuning fork placed close to a wine glass will cause the latter to vibrate, as the Beeb notes. Nicorovici and Milton say an illuminated speck of dust (yup, that's the scale we're talking about), in close proximity to a "superlens*" cloaking material, would "scatter light at frequencies that induce a strong, finely tuned resonance in a cloaking material placed very close by". Said resonance cancels out the light coming from the speck, and voila! - invisibility.....more...
[/INDENT]

[String]

glass-like material that they claim to be 100% transparent

Who's going to clean up all the dead birds? Be careful, kamome!!

[kamome]

Who's going to clean up all the dead birds? Be careful, kamome!!

Thanks for the heads up! I hate those headaches you get after flying head first into a window.

[Hanakuso]

someone posted this up after that article...

"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?"



I second that...