The future is now!

From the Daily Californian:

UC Berkeley researchers invent invisibility cloak to conceal 3-D objects

A team of UC Berkeley researchers published a study Thursday detailing a miniature invisibility cloak that can conceal 3-D objects by refracting light waves.

The cloak, made from a thin material covered with millions of gold-plated antennae, wraps around an object and uses the antennae to divert light waves from its surface, rendering it undetectable to the human eye.

Under the lead of Xiang Zhang, director of materials sciences at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and professor in the campus’s department of mechanical engineering, the team created the first model of the cloak six years ago. The previous design, however, presented limitations because it was made of a bulkier material and needed to have a fixed cylindrical shape.

“The old theory was not practical,” Zhang said. “If you wanted to cloak a person, you needed to carry a tank around you.”

Based on a completely different design principle, the current model of the cloak is extremely thin, measuring 80 nanometers thick, or one-thousandth the size of a single human hair. Tiny antennae act like a mirror to control the propagation of light to conceal the object underneath. The material itself is similar to a thin piece of cloth.