New Metamaterial First to Bend Light in the Visible Spectrum
We're one step closer to the stuff of sci-fi and boy wizards. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have engineered a metamaterial with a refined 3-D structure that gives light a negative refraction index upon entering the material. Put another way, it bends light the opposite way one might expect, irrespective of the angle or polarization of incoming light waves. Put yet another way: We're getting closer to that invisibility cloak we've been looking for. Metamaterials, of course, are artificial materials engineered to exhibit properties that don't come easily in nature. Such materials could have a range of applications, from superlenses to solar cells to active camouflage. And while this isn't the first light-bending metamaterial we've ever seen, it is the first one that operates on visible light, doing all of its negative-index refracting in the blue part of the spectrum. Not only that, but this new metamaterial is simpler than...