Magnetic Cloaking

The cloaking technology provides the possibility that small objects may become nearly invisible and in some way also develop the military stealth tools and technology. The idea came out through the cloaking technology presented in Star Trek when Romulan spaceships were made to vanish. Such device was proposed to be developed that would make objects safe from electromagnetic detention via visible light and radar. There have been new findings in the subject of cloaking by means of magnetism and microwaves. Developments in research indicate that cloaking devices can conceal objects from at leave a wavelength of electromagnetic radiation. This new technology of invisibility has become a sensational theoretical phenomenon but experimental understanding of these magnetic cloaks has only been attained from basic approaches.

In 2006, a team of scientists was able to successfully test a cloak of invisibility. The device was able to make a little copper cylinder disappear from microwaves during their testing. The cloak worked by bouncing off the microwaves around the cylinder and restored it on the other side, making it looked like it passed across an empty space. The cloak was made of 10 fiber glass rings with copper elements and was categorized to be a “metamaterial”. This artificial compound can be manipulated to create a required change in the course of the electromagnetic waves. Microwaves recoil objects just like visible light waves, causing them to become evident and a shadow can be observed. The cloak directs electromagnetic waves around a fundamental region so that anything can be positioned in that area and will not interrupt the electromagnetic fields.

The idea of the index of refraction should be taken to consideration in the improvement of the cloaking device. The refractive index of an object defines how much light curves or bends when passing in it. Nearly all objects have a consistent refractive index all through, so light only bends once it traverses the limit into the object or material.

Cloaking research to develop metamaterials has still a long way to go. Cloaking technology has its limitations as well. One factor that people don’t realize is that once people are in a cloaked region or area, they will be unable to see out since visible light will be curving and bending all over where they are located. Invisibility would be achieved but then so would be blindness.

At present, creating such device that will work on every wavelength of visible light is beyond the research and capabilities of scientists. There is still no assurance if there is even a possibility that several wavelengths can be cloaked at the same time. Full invisibility might be impossible or is decades, even centuries away from reaching it. As of present, calculations made in studies states that an object would be invisible in a 632.8 nanometers wavelength which links to the color red. However, through continuous research and extensive explorations, a phasing cloaking technology might be possible to be created. In such device, each color of the visible light spectrum can be cloaked for a portion of a second. A design as such where all colors of visible light can be cloaked will be a technical test that scientists will have to encounter. Accomplishing such will allow an object to look translucent but not really invisible.

Invisibility as seen in the popular culture such as Star Trek’s cloaking device and Harry Potter’s may not be achieved any time soon. As of present findings, total invisibility remains to be but a science fiction.