Cloaking Devices, Electromagnetic Wormholes, and Transformation Optics

We describe recent theoretical and experimental progress on making objects invisible to detection by electromagnetic waves. Ideas for devices that would once have seemed fanciful may now be at least approximately implemented physically using a new class of artificially structured materials called metamaterials. Maxwell's equations have transformation laws that allow for the design of electromagnetic material parameters that steer light around a hidden region, returning it to its original path on the far side. Not only would observers be unaware of the contents of the hidden region, they would not even be aware that something was being hidden. An object contained in the hidden region, which would have no shadow, is said to be cloaked. Proposals for, and even experimental implementations of, such cloaking devices have received the most attention, but other designs having striking effects on wave propagation are possible. All of these designs are initially based on the transformation laws of the equations that govern wave propagation but, due to the singular parameters that give rise to the desired effects, care needs to be taken in formulating and analyzing physically meaningful solutions. We recount the recent history of the subject and discuss some of the mathematical and physical issues involved.

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