Harry Potter Invisibility Cloak a Step Closer

Scottish researchers say they have created a flexible material that can manipulate light, a step closer to producing something akin to Harry Potter's invisibility cloak.

Researchers in Scotland say they have brought a Harry Potter-like invisibility cloak a step closer to reality with the creation of a flexible material that can redirect light – eventually right around objects. “We can reroute light, we can have it  move around our new material any way we like,” says Andrea Di Falco, the study’s lead author.
Dubbed Meta-flex, the new polymer material will one day be able to route light around an object and have it come out the other side, as if it were going straight through, says Di Falco, a University of St Andrews physicist.  Objects become visible when they reflect, scatter or absorb light.  Metamaterials work by interrupting and channeling the flow of light. In effect, they bounce light in such a manner as to produce an invisible effect.

Metamaterials that bend and channel light had already been developed, but mainly on hard, inflexible surfaces, mainly silicon, and only subject to long wavelengths of light. To create the invisibility effect for short visible wavelengths of light, the structure, or nanostructure, of the metamaterial needs to be smaller than scientists had before been able to manufacture.
In 2006, scientists at a UK/US team announced that they could cloak solid objects. Sir John Pendry, the theoretical physicist at Imperial College London who developed the idea, explained, “Our device is more an invisibility shed than an invisibility cloak.”

The breakthrough by the St. Andrews team is in the development of a metamaterial membrane using nanostructures stacked on thin polymer film to create a flexible surface which would appear invisible at shorter wavelengths in the visible spectrum. Metaflex operates at wavelengths of about 620 nanometres, which is within the visible light spectrum. The scientists at St. Andrews overcame the problem of manufacturing small metamaterial atoms by using a technique to free meta-atoms from the initial hard surface. Dr. Di Falco's team created Metaflex by stacking the nanostructures on thin polymer film instead of the hard silicon used previously. Other applications for Metaflex include improved lenses for cameras and contact lenses for the eyes.

The invisibility cloaks envisioned in fairy tale and science fiction were invariably used for ill purposes. Responses to the possibility of a real-life invisibility cloak range from excitement to fear. Many scientific developments of the last decade have raised ethical questions we have never been faced with before (eg...cloning and stem cell research using fetuses).  How to administrate and control such an invention will raise ethics debates around the world. And yes, think of the possibilities it presents to criminals and insane despots of which we have many.
According to Dr. Di Falco, "The first step is imagining that this can be done. We are only limited by our imagination here."