Creation of Ghost Illusions Using Wave Dynamics in Metamaterials

The creation of wave‐dynamic illusion functionality is of great interest to various scientific communities because it can potentially transform an actual perception into the pre‐controlled perception, thus empowering unprecedented applications in the advanced‐material science, camouflage, cloaking, optical and/or microwave cognition, and defense security. By using the space transformation theory and engineering capability of metamaterials, a functional “ghost” illusion device, which is capable of creating multiple virtual ghost images of the original object's position under the illumination of electromagnetic waves, is proposed and realized. The scattering signature of the object is thus ghosted and perceived as multiple ghost targets with different geometries and compositions. The ghost‐illusion material, which is being inhomogeneous and anisotropic, is realized using thousands of varying unit cells working at non‐resonance. The experimental demonstration of the ghost illusion validates the theory of scattering metamorphosis and opens a novel avenue to the wave‐dynamic illusion, cognitive deception, manipulate strange light (or matter) behaviors, and design novel optical and microwave devices.

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