Becoming invisible with the swish of a cloak as in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels could soon be a reality with a £4.5m research project led by Queen Mary, University of London.
The project, Quest for Ultimate Electromagnetics using Spatial Transformations (QUEST), funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, aims to transform the science fiction of invisibility into practical technology.
Professor Yang Hao from Queen Mary’s School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science who leads the five-year project said: “There has been intensive research into the principles of invisibility science which has now matured to the point that the next big step is to use the insights of theory to produce practical devices.
“Invisibility is an optical illusion created by the transformation of space in suitable materials. Wireless technology relies on electromagnetic waves like radio waves that are similar in behaviour to light, but have much longer wavelengths, and what is possible for light is often also possible for other electromagnetic waves.”
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