Star Trek Style Cloaking Device Technology Developed

The "Cloaking Device" first introduced in the Star Trek episode Balance of Terror is soon to be a reality due to research being done at Berkely.



"Berkeley — Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have for the first time engineered 3-D materials that can reverse the natural direction of visible and near-infrared light, a development that could help form the basis for higher resolution optical imaging, nanocircuits for high-powered computers, and, to the delight of science-fiction and fantasy buffs, cloaking devices that could render objects invisible to the human eye. Two breakthroughs in the development of metamaterials – composite materials with extraordinary capabilities to bend electromagnetic waves – are reported separately this week in the Aug. 13 advanced online issue of Nature, and in the Aug. 15 issue of Science. Applications for a metamaterial entail altering how light normally behaves. In the caseinvisibility cloaks or shields, the material would need to curve light waves completely aroundlike a river flowing around a rock. For optical microscopes to discern individual, living virusesmolecules, the resolution of the microscope must be smaller than the wavelength of light."