Metamaterials: Leading light waves astray
Tuesday, June 4, 2013 - 11:00
in Physics & Chemistry
The development of structured synthetic materials with unusual electromagnetic properties, so-called metamaterials, promises to provide access to special physical effects of great technological interest. Metamaterials have already been fabricated that have a negative refractive index for electromagnetic waves -- bending them in the opposite sense to light waves entering water, for instance -- which opens up completely novel opportunities for the manipulation of light. One of these makes it possible, in principle, to create cloaking devices that seem to make objects disappear. Indeed, such an invisibility cloak has already been realized for microwaves.