Harry Potter’s magic cloak and cap of darkness to become real owing to new technology

New technologies will soon enable man to make such amazing things as Fortunatus’s cap or a magic cloak.

Photo: Harry Potter’s magic cloak and cap of darkness to become real owing to new technology

A Russian scientist from Ulyanovsk made a sensational discovery. Prof. Oleg Gadomsky at the department of quantum and optical electronics of the Ulyanovsk State University took a patent on a method to make things invisible. His patent certificate describes the invention as “the method of transformation of an optical radiation.”

Know-how is based on the behavior of light and the reflecting power of objects. Prior to making his discovery, the scientist from Ulyanovsk had experimented with nanoparticles of gold for many years.

“Now we can make invisible motionless objects only. The frequency of radiations change in moving objects, and therefore it’s impossible to keep them invisible,” says Gadomsky. An object covered with a superfine coat of microscopic colloid particles of gold becomes invisible to the naked eye. The method is applicable to stationary objects only. “But soon scientists will be able to make such things as Fortunatus’s cap or Harry Porter’s magic cloak”, Gadomsky was quoted as saying by Interfax.

Godomsky is not the first one to gain success in the field of man-made invisibility. In March 2005, two U.S. scientists said they had invented a theoretical way of making objects invisible.

Andrea Alu and Nader Ingueta at the University of Pennsylvania are designing a special coating to make objects invisible to the human eye. The researchers maintain that their theory is consistent with the fundamental laws of physics, and based on previous observations with regard to the behavior of light.

The researchers are using the so-called plasmons i.e. quasi-particles used in the past for explaining the ability of light of a certain wavelength to penetrate a metal plate with orifices.

The principle of the chameleon i.e. camouflage screen was used for designing all previous varieties of Fortunatus’s caps.

U.S. researchers’ technology is fundamentally different from the above concepts. It largely resembles the design of the Russian scientist. U.S. design is based on the concept of a sharp decrease in the scattering of light. Humans see objects by the light they reflect. Objects will become invisible should the process be disrupted by one way or another.

Alu and Ingueta suggest that a “plasmon” coating be used for above purposes. The coating should resonate with the frequency of the reflected light. The materials should have a very low or negative penetrability level. The calculations show that spherical and cylindrical objects coated with a specially designed material will not reflect any light. Once the light of a certain wavelength is directed to such objects, their visible dimensions will sharply diminish to the point of virtual disappearance, BBC reports.

The researchers believe that large objects e.g. aircraft or spaceships covered with a coat of plasmons will be able to disappear from the radar screen.