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3D Continuously Multidirectional Cloaking Device Uses Low-Cost, Ordinary Lenses

Scientists have recently developed several approaches to 'invisibility cloaks' which hide objects from view. A new method from the University of Rochester uses inexpensive, readily available materials in a novel configuration. "There've been many high tech approaches to cloaking and the basic idea behind these is to take light and have it pass around something as if it isn't there, often using high-tech or exotic materials," says John Howell, a physics professor at the University of Rochester. Howell and graduate student Joseph Choi developed a combination of four standard lenses that keeps the object hidden as the viewer moves up to several degrees away from the optimal viewing position. "This is the first device that we know of that can do three-dimensional, continuously multidirectional cloaking, which works for transmitting rays in the visible spectrum," said Choi. The new cloak can be scaled up as large as the size of the lenses, allowing fairly large objects to be cloaked. And, unlike some other devices, it's broadband so it works for the whole visible spectrum of light, rather than only for specific frequencies.