Scientists have created an invisibility cloak based on a layer of graphene one atom thick.
Andrea Alù's group in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin has found two ways of creating a cloaking device based on drastic scattering reduction from moderately-sized objects.
One is the concept of plasmonic cloaking conceived with Nader Engheta at the University of Pennsylvania based on the use of a thin metamaterial cover to suppress the scattering from a passive object.
The second is the concept of mantle cloaking based on a simple impedance surface to achieve similar effects.
The effective surface impedance of graphene can be tuned in real-time to make dynamically tunable and switchable cloaking possible.
Even a single layer of atoms, with the conductivity properties of graphene, may achieve this functionality in planar and cylindrical geometries.
Properly patterned conducting surfaces can tailor their effective surface impedance at will.
Recent progress in understanding graphene's AC conductivity has enabled Alù's group to implement its unique features of ultra-high mobility and tunable Fermi level to provide the required reactive properties in a single atomic layer.
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