Natural Light Cloaking for Aquatic and Terrestrial Creatures

A cloak that can hide living creatures from sight is a common feature of mythology but still remains unrealized as a practical device. To preserve the phase of wave, the previous cloaking solution proposed by Pendry \emph{et al.} required transforming electromagnetic space around the hidden object in such a way that the rays bending around it have to travel much faster than those passing it by. The difficult phase preservation requirement is the main obstacle for building a broadband polarization insensitive cloak for large objects. Here, we suggest a simplifying version of Pendry's cloak by abolishing the requirement for phase preservation as irrelevant for observation in incoherent natural light with human eyes that are phase and polarization insensitive. This allows the cloak design to be made in large scale using commonly available materials and we successfully report cloaking living creatures, a cat and a fish, in front of human eyes.

[1]  Yu Luo,et al.  Macroscopic invisibility cloaking of visible light , 2010, Nature communications.

[2]  T. Tyc,et al.  Invisibility cloaking without superluminal propagation , 2011, 1105.0164.

[3]  David R. Smith,et al.  Metamaterial Electromagnetic Cloak at Microwave Frequencies , 2006, Science.

[4]  David R. Smith,et al.  Controlling Electromagnetic Fields , 2006, Science.

[5]  U. Leonhardt.  Optical Conformal Mapping , 2006, Science.

[6]  David R. Smith,et al.  Broadband Ground-Plane Cloak , 2009, Science.

[7]  M. Lipson,et al.  Silicon nanostructure cloak operating at optical frequencies , 2009, 0904.3508.

[8]  J. Pendry,et al.  Three-Dimensional Invisibility Cloak at Optical Wavelengths , 2010, Science.

[9]  J. Pendry,et al.  Hiding under the carpet: a new strategy for cloaking. , 2008, Physical review letters.

[10]  David R. Smith,et al.  Broadband electromagnetic cloaking with smart metamaterials , 2012, Nature Communications.

[11]  David R. Smith,et al.  A full-parameter unidirectional metamaterial cloak for microwaves. , 2013, Nature materials.

[12]  Hongsheng Chen,et al.  Experimental demonstration of a free-space cylindrical cloak without superluminal propagation. , 2011, Physical review letters.

[13]  N. Engheta,et al.  Experimental verification of plasmonic cloaking at microwave frequencies with metamaterials. , 2009, Physical review letters.

[14]  T. Tyc,et al.  Broadband Invisibility by Non-Euclidean Cloaking , 2009, Science.

[15]  Hongsheng Chen,et al.  Broadband polygonal invisibility cloak for visible light , 2012, Scientific Reports.

[16]  G. Barbastathis,et al.  Macroscopic invisibility cloak for visible light. , 2010, Physical review letters.

[17]  N. Engheta,et al.  Achieving transparency with plasmonic and metamaterial coatings. , 2005, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[18]  T. Cui,et al.  Three-dimensional broadband ground-plane cloak made of metamaterials , 2010, Nature communications.

[19]  Hongsheng Chen,et al.  One-Directional Perfect Cloak Created With Homogeneous Material , 2009 .

[20]  G. Bartal,et al.  An optical cloak made of dielectrics. , 2009, Nature materials.

[21]  Baile Zhang.  Electrodynamics of transformation-based invisibility cloaking , 2012, Light: Science & Applications.

[22]  Vladimir M. Shalaev,et al.  Optical cloaking with metamaterials , 2006, physics/0611242.