Researchers Succeed in Concealing Optical Chip Rendering It Invisible

A team of researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have accomplished a breakthrough in controlling light to render an object, such as an optical chip, invisible.

According to the latest study published in Nature Scientific Reports, the team conceived a new technique that deflects and disperses light away from a "cloaking" chip surface so it is not spotted.

An operational cloaking chip can be an extension of the standard technologies such as radar-absorbing dark paint used on stealth aircraft, surface cooling to minimize electromagnetic infrared emissions, local optical camouflage, or electromagnetic wave scattering.

These results open the door to new integrated photonic devices, harnessing electromagnetic fields of light at nanoscale for a variety of applications from on-chip optical devices to all-optical processing. We showed that it is possible to bend the light around an object located on the cloak on an optical chip. The light does not interact with the object, thus resulting in the object's invisibility.

Dr. Alina Karabchevsky, Head of The Light-on-a-Chip Group, BGU

The subsequent step is for the researchers to overcome the major challenge of creating a prototype.