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Wednesday, 1st February 2006 (9700 views)

A Russian scientist thinks he can use gold nanoparticles to create a Harry Potter style "invisibility cloak".

Professor Oleg Gadomsky has patented a new technique for optical camouflage.

The professor, who works in both quantum and optical electronics, believes that arranging gold nanoparticles in a stratum could disrupt light radiation and bend images.

He claims to have invented a sub-micron stratum of microscopical colloid golden particles, which act as a wall to make an object behind it invisible to an onlooker.

"Only static objects can be made invisible for the time being, as during motion the radiation frequency changes. But soon it will be possible to create a cap of darkness and a magic cloak like Harry Potter's," Mos News reports him as saying.

However, the patent does not show a scale demonstration of the technique, nor make any claims that it actually works – suggesting that the sceptical observer should wait until they see it with their own eyes, or not as the case may be.

If it does work, the process will be an entirely new technique to the optical "camouflage" methods already explored.

In 2003, researchers from the University of Tokyo claimed to have invented their own invisibility cloak, which projected an image behind the cloak onto its front.

 

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