Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Contents
1. Introduction 65
2. Early Concepts of Invisibility 67
3. Nonscattering Objects and Inverse Problems 75
4. Optical Cloaking 82
5. Other Cloaking Designs 90
6. Experiments and Material Properties 94
7. Related Applications 97
8. Invisibility in Science Fiction 100
9. Concluding Remarks 106
Acknowledgments 107
References 107
1. INTRODUCTION
The idea of invisibility has captured the imagination of humanity since
ancient times. Though the earliest visions of invisibility required magical
powers and artifacts bestowed by the gods, by the mid-19th century authors
of science fiction began to devise physical,if fanciful,explanations of how one
might “hide from light.”Around nearly the same time, physicists speculating
about the nature of the atom began unknowingly laying the groundwork
for invisibility physics. These early investigations led directly into invisibility
in the context of inverse scattering and eventually to the modern concepts
of optical cloaking.
In this chapter, we will review the physics of invisibility, and consider
developments from the past, present, and possible future. Far from being
a scientific novelty, the physics and mathematics of being unseen suggests
many possible applications in a variety of fields, including acoustics, imaging,
seismology, and quantum mechanics.
Progress in Optics, Volume 58 © 2013 Elsevier B.V.
ISSN 0079-6638, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-62644-8.00002-9 All rights reserved. 65
66 Greg Gbur
+ −
+ − + − − −
Dynamid model Plum pudding model −
+ − − −
P. Lenard (1903) + − + − J.J. Thomson (1904)
−
+ − + − − −
+8
−
+
− − −
+
−
+
−
−
+
Saturnian model Archion model +
− +8 −
H. Nagaoka (1904) J. Stark (1910) −
− −
−
+
− −
+
−
+
Figure 2 Illustration of early incorrect models of the atom.
coated the inside of a pair of hemispheres with a luminous paint and drilled
a small hole in one of the hemispheres for observation. Wood found that
a “crystal ball or the cut glass stopper of a decanter” appeared to disappear
from view when sealed between the hemispheres.
Wood’s experiment, though intriguing, also failed to attract much atten-
tion. At about the same time, however, many physicists were occupied by
a very important and unsolved problem, namely the structure of the atom.
By 1903, there were only a few tantalizing clues available to researchers: the
presence of electrons, the structure of the periodic table, radioactivity, and
the Balmer and Rydberg formulas for atomic spectra. Some of the most
preeminent scientists of the time published their speculations on atomic
structure, most notably J.J. Thomson with his “plum pudding” model of
the atom (Thomson, 1904). Other examples include P. Lenard’s “dynamid”
model, which postulated that electrons in the atom are bound with positive
charges in pairs called dynamids (Lenard, 1903), H. Nagaoka’s “Saturnian”
model (Nagaoka, 1904), and J. Stark’s “Archion” model, which imagined that
atoms consist of magnetic dipoles arranged in rings, with electrons balancing
the positive charges (Stark, 1910). These models are illustrated in Figure 2.
All of these ideas possessed inherent difficulties. James Jeans performed
a dimensional analysis encompassing most hypotheses and astutely noted
that one could not derive a quantity with units of frequency from them,
suggesting that new physics was needed to explain the atom (Jeans, 1906).
GeorgeAdolphus Schott attempted to introduce this frequency by suggesting
that electrons were extended objects constantly trying to grow in size, and
Invisibility Physics: Past, Present, and Future 69
∞
1
ρ(r, t) = K · jn (K)e i(K·r−ωn t) d3 K , (2.3b)
n=−∞
ωn
with ωn = 2πn/T . On substitution from these expressions into
Equations (2.2), we find that the latter may be rewritten as
∞
(2π)3 μ0 e ikn r
A(rs, t) ≈ Jn (kn s) e −iωn t , (2.4a)
4π n=−∞ r
Invisibility Physics: Past, Present, and Future 71
∞
(2π)3 e ikn r
φ(rs, t) ≈ s · Jn (kn s) e −iωn t , (2.4b)
4π0 c n=−∞ r
where
1
f˜ (K) = f (r)e −iK·r d3 r. (2.7)
(2π)3 V
Using the standard relationship between the potentials and the electric field,
we finally arrive at the result
∞ T
(2π)3 e e ikn r
E(rs, t) = − ikn f˜ (kn s) e −iω n t
e −ikn s·ξ (t )
4π0 cT n=−∞ r 0
×(s × [s × ξ̇ (t )])e iωn t dt . (2.8)
The terms of this series depend upon the time-independent Fourier trans-
form f˜ (kn s) of the charge distribution. This leads to the following theorem,
due to Schott,
Theorem 2.2. A rigid charge distribution ef (r) undergoing periodic trans-
lational motion will not produce any radiation if the condition
f˜ (kn s) = 0 (2.9)
is satisfied for all nonzero integers n and for all directions of observation s,
independent of the precise path of the distribution.
Schott considered the special case of a uniformly charged sphere of radius
a, and demonstrated that this sphere will produce no radiation for a radius
a = mcT /2, where m is an integer. It is immediately apparent that the period
of oscillation is an integer multiple of the amount of time it takes for light to
cross the sphere’s diameter. This in turn indicates that the sphere’s range of
motion is limited by relativity to be much less than its diameter: the sphere’s
motion is more a “wobble” than an “orbit.”
72 Greg Gbur
u(rs)
rs
q(r)
In the far zone of the source (kr 1),this expression may be approximated as
e ikr
u(rs) ≈ (2π)3 q̃(ks), (2.12)
r
where
1
q̃(K) = q(r )e −iK·r d3 r . (2.13)
(2π)3 D
The function q̃(rs) is often referred to as the radiation pattern of the source.
Equation (2.12) leads to the following theorem.
Theorem 2.3. A source will be nonradiating, i.e., it will not produce any
power flow in the far zone of the source, if and only if
q̃(ks) = 0 for all directions s. (2.14)
It is to be noted that this theorem is essentially a monochromatic ver-
sion of Theorem 2.2 shown earlier. A simple example of such a source is a
homogeneous sphere of radius a. It was shown by Kim and Wolf (1986) that
such a sphere will not radiate if it satisfies the condition j1 (ka) = 0, where
j1 (x) is the first-order spherical Bessel function.
Another important theorem, first shown in its present form by
Friedlander (1973), is as follows:
Theorem 2.4. The field of a nonradiating source vanishes everywhere
outside the domain of the source.
If a source is nonradiating, it therefore produces no radiation anywhere
outside of the source domain. Finally, we note the following theorem by
Gamliel, Kim, Nachman, and Wolf (1989), useful in the mathematical con-
struction of nonradiating distributions.
74 Greg Gbur
It was shown some time ago that primary planar sources in three-
dimensional space must necessarily be radiating (Friberg, 1978). More
recently, however, Devaney (2004) suggested that nonradiating surface
sources are possible, if one considers a broader class of singlet and doublet
surface elements. This latter observation has some relevance in the context
of cloaking, to be discussed soon.
noncontinuity
us (r)
ui (r)
D
n(r,ω)
Due to the nonconstant refractive index n(r, ω), this equation does not typ-
ically possess simple analytic solutions. However, we can write it in a more
useful form by adding k2 u to both sides of the equation, and bringing the
refractive index term to the right-hand side,
k2 [n2 (r, ω) − 1]
F(r, ω) ≡ , (2.19)
4π
we may then write
The incident field is taken to be the field that would exist throughout space
in the absence of the scattering object, and it therefore satisfies the homo-
geneous Helmholtz equation,
∇ 2 ui + k2 ui = 0. (2.21)
where u = us + ui .
Because of the presence of us on both sides of Equation (2.23), it is
difficult to assess the existence or nonexistence of nonscattering scatterers.
In the special case that the scattering potential is extremely weak, however,
we may then approximate u(r, ω) in Equation (2.23) by ui (r, ω), in what is
known as the first Born approximation (Born & Wolf, 1999, Section 13.1.2).
A weakly scattering object will then be nonscattering if
F(r , ω)ui (r , ω)e ik r̂·r d 3 r = 0 for all r̂. (2.25)
D
ks
—ks0
ΣL
Figure 6 Illustrating the Ewald spheres of reflection (dashed) and the Ewald limiting
sphere, L .
Invisibility Physics: Past, Present, and Future 81
must consequently vanish within a sphere of radius |K| ≤ 2k, known as the
Ewald limiting sphere. However, because F̃(K, ω) is the Fourier transform of
a function of finite support, it is the boundary value of an entire analytic
function in three complex variables (see Fuks, 1963, p. 352). It follows then
that F̃(K, ω) cannot vanish over any three-dimensional region of K-space
unless it vanishes identically—in which case F(r, ω) is itself identically zero.
This theorem was also proven in an exact form by Nachman (1988), who
demonstrated the general uniqueness of the inverse scattering problem. We
state his result as a theorem for future reference.
Theorem 3.4. We consider the class of inhomogeneous, isotropic scatter-
ing objects of finite conductivity and finite extent. Perfectly nonscattering
objects of this class do not exist.
The nonexistence of nonscattering scatterers implies the uniqueness of
inverse scattering problems: by probing an object with illumination from
a sufficiently large number of incident directions and measuring the field
for a sufficiently large number of scattering directions, an accurate image of
the object can be constructed. However, the theorem by Nachman, though
correct and of broad significance, does not encompass all possible scatter-
ing materials, leaving the possibility of “loopholes” in the theory allowing
invisibility.
One such loophole was introduced relatively early in scattering theory,
when Alexopoulos and Uzunoglu (1978) observed that active spherical scat-
terers (ones with a negative imaginary part of the refractive index, implying
gain) can have a vanishing extinction cross-section, implying that the inci-
dent field is unaffected. However, Kerker (1978) pointed out that, although
the extinction cross-section may be small for such objects, the scattering
cross-section will still be quite large. In such cases, the loss of the incident
field due to scattering is perfectly balanced by its amplification in the gain
medium. Recently, a number of authors (Arslanagic & Ziolkowski, 2010,
2011) have demonstrated that a lossy particle surrounded by a shell of gain
medium can possess significant transparency.
Such “invisible” gain particles are strikingly similar to the properties
of some recent optical systems exhibiting parity-time (PT) symmetry. First
discussed by Bender and Boettcher (1998) in the context of quantum mechan-
ics, a PT-symmetric system in optics is one which possesses alternating
regions of gain and loss with particular values; Berry (2008) and Makris,
El-Ganainy, Christodoulides, and Musslimani (2008) produced some early
work on the optical case. In recent years, Lin et al. (2011) demonstrated
82 Greg Gbur
4. OPTICAL CLOAKING
The study of invisibility physics was reinvented and reinvigorated with
the publication of two back-to-back papers in Science, by Leonhardt (2006b)
and Pendry, Schurig, and Smith (2006). These articles theoretically demon-
strated that it is not only possible to construct an invisible object, but that it
is possible to create an invisibility cloak that hides an arbitrary object within
an interior cloaked region. Simulations of the effect of these cloaks on light
rays are shown in Figure 7.
Both of these cloak designs are based on the observation that light prop-
agating in a vacuum region of curved space is mathematically analogous to
light propagating in a medium with gradient material properties in Cartesian
Figure 7 The behavior of light rays in (a) the Leonhardt cloak, for two different directions
of incidence and (b) the Pendry–Schurig–Smith cloak. (From Leonhardt (2006b) and
Pendry et al. (2006), respectively) Reprinted with permission from AAAS.
Invisibility Physics: Past, Present, and Future 83
n2
n2 = . (2.31)
|dw/dz|2
The form of the Helmholtz equation is therefore preserved under the map-
ping w(z), and the effect of the map can be absorbed into a new effective
refractive index n . To design a cloak, we begin by choosing a mapping such
that w(z) = z for large values of w, and such that n = 1. Rays will form
straight lines in w-space, propagating as in vacuum. It therefore seems that,
regardless of their distortion in z-space, rays will return to their original
trajectories far from the distortion region.
84 Greg Gbur
Not every mapping will form a cloaking device, however, and will not
even necessarily result in a device that exhibits invisibility; even straightfor-
ward transformations necessarily result in a multi-sheeted Riemann surface
within which rays can be “lost.” For instance, the simple map
z= w ± w 2 − 4a2 , (2.34)
2
which is a two-sheeted Riemann surface. There are a pair of branch points
at w = ±2a, and the branch cut in z-space is the unit circle.
In z-space, rays that do not cross the branch cut will be deflected from
the interior region near the cloak and return to their original trajectory far
away, satisfying our concept of a cloaking device. However, rays that do cross
the branch cut in w-space (or cross the unit circle in z-space) will transfer to
the other Riemann sheet and, in z-space, will asymptotically approach the
origin. The unit circle acts as an “event horizon” of sorts, and any rays that
pass within will never emerge again, resulting in the cloaking device casting
a significant shadow.2
This difficulty can be fixed by replacing the functional behavior on the
second Riemann sheet with a function that guides incoming rays around
a circular or elliptical path to cross the branch cut a second time and with
the same trajectory and position by which they entered. A possible refractive
index which does this is the Kepler potential,
r0
n2 = − 1, (2.35)
|w − w1 |
where w1 is taken to be one of the branch points, e.g., w1 = +2a. Values
of w for which this potential becomes negative are inaccessible to light rays
and are cloaked from observation, because the refractive index becomes pure
imaginary.
2 This relationship between black holes and cloaking devices will be further discussed in
Section 7.
Invisibility Physics: Past, Present, and Future 85
Because these equations are in free space, the B-field can also be written in
terms of the H in the usual manner,
Bj = μ0 Hj . (2.41)
This revised set of equations can be compared to the macroscopic
Maxwell’s equations in a Cartesian coordinate system but in a material
medium,
D,ii = ρ, B,ii = 0,
∂B i ∂D i
[ijk]Ek,j = − , [ijk]Hk,j = + J i. (2.42)
∂t ∂t
The two sets of equations can be reconciled if we take the following consti-
tutive relations,
D i = 0 ij Ej , B i = μ0 μij Hj , (2.43)
with the following identifications of the permittivity and permeability,
√
ij = μij = gg ij . (2.44)
These relations provide a prescription for constructing an electromagnetic
invisibility device. One designs a “virtual” warping of space for the free-
space Maxwell’s equations, and then determines directly the type of material
properties that will produce the effect in real Cartesian space.
There are several important observations to be made immediately from
this construction. Because the permittivity and permeability are equal, the
material is of unit impedance, and in fact produces no reflections. Further-
more, these quantities are in general of tensor form, which means that the
material is anisotropic. Moreover, the presence of a nontrivial permeability
indicates that the material is in general magnetic. Because most materials in
nature do not possess a significant magnetic response at optical frequencies,
this cloaking design needs to be fabricated out of novel substances known
as metamaterials, to be discussed in Section 6.
The electromagnetic cloak described by Pendry et al. (2006) is a spherical
shell of inner radius R1 and an outer radius R2 .A spatial transformation is used
that compresses all fields within the sphere r < R2 into the shell R1 < r < R2 ,
of the form
r = R1 + r(R2 − R1 )/R2 , θ = θ, φ = φ. (2.45)
The warping of a Cartesian region of space under this coordinate transfor-
mation is illustrated in Figure 8, with the path of a ray shown for clarity. This
88 Greg Gbur
R2 (r − R1 )2
r = , (2.46a)
R2 − R1 r 2
R2
θ = , (2.46b)
R2 − R1
R2
φ = , (2.46c)
R2 − R1
and with μij = ij .
It should be noted immediately, that r → 0 as r → R1 . This indicates
that n → 0 on the inner surface, or that the phase velocity of light becomes
infinite on that surface, as it did for the conformal cloak. The reason for this
is clear from a consideration of Figure 7b. In order to provide an undistorted
wavefront at the output of the cloak, all rays must travel the same optical path
within the cloak. However,those rays that pass close to the inner surface must
travel a longer spatial distance, and must have an increased phase velocity to
Invisibility Physics: Past, Present, and Future 89
Figure 9 E-field distribution and Poynting vector of a plane wave interacting with an
ideal cloak. (From Chen et al. (2007)) Copyright American Physical Society.
90 Greg Gbur
as a special case. The authors further noted that causality prohibits a per-
fect cloak of this form that functions over a finite bandwidth. Chen et al.
(2007) and Kildishev, Cai, Chettiar, and Shalaev (2008) considered extend-
ing the bandwidth of operation by tailoring the dispersion properties of the
cloak material, but also observed that this approach was subject to signifi-
cant causal limitations. These limitations were quantified by Hashemi, Qiu,
McCauley, Joannopoulos, and Johnson (2012), who derived an uncertainty
relation of sorts between the cloaking bandwidth and the diameter of the
cloak.
light rays
cloaking
“carpet”
Figure 10 The principle of the “carpet cloak,” which bends incident rays and waves
away from an excluded volume, making it appear that the surface is flat.
planar surface below. Unlike the PSSC, this device can be constructed with
nearly isotropic materials; furthermore, it does not require infinite phase
velocities and therefore can be constructed to work over a larger frequency
range. These simplifications have resulted in a number of experimental real-
izations, which will be discussed in the next section. However, it has been
shown by Zhang, Chan, and Wu (2010) that a carpet cloak designed without
any anisotropy results in a lateral shift of the reflected wave that in principle
makes the cloaked region detectable.
To simplify the design of a cylindrical cloak, Cai, Chettiar, Kildishev, and
Shalaev (2007) introduced a reduced set of cloaking material parameters
that are nonmagnetic. This cloak, however, is not impedance matched and
will result in some scattered fields. By using a higher-order transformation,
Cai, Chettiar, Kildishev, Shalaev, and Milton (2007) reduced the scattering
considerably.
Another strategy for simplifying the design of cloaks is to consider devices
that only work for a single direction of illumination (somewhat reminiscent
of the early nonscattering scatterer theory of Devaney (1978)). Xi,Chen,Wu,
and Kong (2009) introduced a unidirectional cloak that can be fashioned only
out of isotropic materials. A similar strategy was independently arrived at by
Urzhumov and Smith (2012) some time later.
From its very name, one naturally assumes that an invisibility cloak must
wrap around the object to be hidden. Remarkably, however, a number of
researchers have pointed out that a cloak may be designed that hides objects
outside of itself. Vasquez, Milton, and Onofrei (2009) demonstrated that an
active cloak,4 consisting of a finite system of sensors coupled to wave sources,
can conceal an object lying outside of the source domain. This idea was
4 In contrast to the use of the word “active” in Section 3, here it refers to a system that senses
an incoming field and produces an active response.
92 Greg Gbur
ε'', µ''
Figure 11 External cloaking using complementary media. (a) A negative index slab
essentially “negates” propagation through an adjacent vacuum region. (b) The scatter-
ing of an external object may be canceled by a complementary object within the slab.
(c) A spherical object can also be used for a complementary medium.
Chan, and Zhu (2011) combined the principles of cloaking and illusion to
create a passive device that works independently of the shape of the concealed
object.
One of the more surprising results of the illusion paper by Lai et al.
(2009) is the argument that it is possible to make an illusion of a hole in an
opaque screen, in essence frustrating the action of the screen. Along similar
lines, it has been suggested by Chen, Luo, Ma, and Chan (2008) that it is
possible to embed an anisotropic “anti-cloak” within a cloaked region to
make the cloak visible. The idea of anticloaking has been further developed
by Castaldi, Gallina, Galdi,Alù, and Engheta (2009).
In what might be considered another consequence of inverse scattering
nonuniqueness, Yang, Chen, Luo, and Ma (2008) have proposed the idea
of a “superscatterer,” an object with a scattering cross-section greatly larger
than the geometric cross-section. Luo,Yang, Gu, Chen, and Ma (2009) have
proposed that such superscatterers could be used to conceal an otherwise
open entryway.
A number of other results in the subject of cloaking are worth mentioning
that do not fit into the broader categories discussed above. Alù (2009) has
introduced the idea of a mantle cloak, which achieves invisibility by the use
of a thin patterned surface region on the object to be hidden. It has been
shown by Baumeier, Leskkova, and Maradudin (2009) that regions of a metal
surface may be cloaked from surface plasmons by means of an array of point
scatterers. Hakansson (2007) has approached the problem of cloaking by
the use of inverse design of scattering optical elements. Setälä, Hakkarainen,
Friberg, and Hoenders (2010) have looked at the problem of cloaking of
a slab object within the context of the first Born approximation, making a
connection between modern cloaking theory and the earlier researches.
94 Greg Gbur
5 In curious synchronicity with earlier work of Sommerfeld, Pendry first began work on
metamaterials when he was called to consult for a company that had developed a radar-
absorbing carbon coating for battleships, the physics of which they did not understand
(Grant & Hapgood, 2009).
Invisibility Physics: Past, Present, and Future 95
(a)
(b)
Figure 13 An illustration of a cylinder with a split ring structure, from (a) side and
(b) top.
n=1 n = −1 n=1
Figure 15 The first experimental cloaking device, developed for microwaves. (Figure
courtesy of David Smith of Duke University).
device used concentric circles of split ring resonators to produce the appro-
priate electric and magnetic material responses; a photograph of the device is
shown in Figure 15. Placed within a planar waveguide, the cloak was shown
to effectively hide a copper cylinder within it. However, it is to be noted that
even for this planar cloaking device, a simplified set of material parameters
were chosen for fabrication, with nontrivial reflections as a result.
As was noted in the previous section,the material requirements for cloak-
ing are much easier in the “hiding under the carpet” configuration of Li and
Pendry (2008), which requires much less extreme variations in refractive
index and can use approximately isotropic materials. The first realization of
such a “ground-plane cloak” was done in the microwave regime by Lie et al.
(2009), and they demonstrated effective cloaking over a wavelength range
from 1.9 to 2.3 cm. Perhaps as important as the demonstration itself was the
development of an algorithm that converts a desired index profile into the
appropriate configuration of metamaterial elements. The cloak was assumed
to be embedded in a background medium with refractive index n = 1.331,
which resulted in cloak indices ranging from n = 1.08 to n = 1.67, all
achievable with nonresonant metamaterials.
Other designs followed,in general increasing the complexity of the device
and reducing the wavelength of operation.Valentine, Li, Zentgraf, Bartal, and
Zhang (2009) fabricated a carpet cloak that functions in a wavelength range
of 1.4–1.8 mm. The device consisted of an array of subwavelength holes of
varying density etched in a silicon slab, cloaking a region 3.8 by 0.4 µm.
Invisibility Physics: Past, Present, and Future 97
At nearly the same time, Lee et al. (2009) and Gabrielli, Cardenas, Poitras, and
Lipson (2009) independently produced carpet cloaks fashioned from silicon
nanorods, operating over a range of wavelengths around 1.5 µm.
All of these carpet designs shared certain features in common: a high
background refractive index, a cloaked region with dimensions comparable
to or smaller than the wavelength, and two-dimensional geometry. The lim-
itation on geometry was overcome by Ergin, Stenger, Brenner, Pendry, and
Wegener (2010), who introduced a cloak that is effective for a broad range of
viewing angles and for unpolarized light at wavelengths from 1.4 to 2.7 µm.
This design was later miniaturized by Fischer, Ergin, and Wegener (2011)
to develop a cloak that functions at wavelengths between 650 to 900 nm,
including part of the visible spectrum. By fashioning a cloak out of optical
calcite, Zhang, Luo, Liu, and Barbastathis (2011) and Chen et al. (2011) were
able to demonstrate the cloaking of a macroscopic region of space using
visible light.
Other types of cloaks have also been demonstrated experimentally. The
reduced cloak of Cai, Chettiar, Kildishev, and Shalaev (2007) was successfully
tested by Smolyaninov, Hung, and Davis (2008). Scattering-cancelation via
plasmonic cloaking was shown by Edwards, Alù, Silveirinha, and Engheta
(2009). A unidirectional two-dimensional cloak was demonstrated by Landy
and Smith (2013); this is perhaps the first cloak that applies transformation
optics without any simplifying approximations in the design. In a curious
synthesis, Xu et al. (2012) experimentally tested a cloak that combines strate-
gies of transformation optics, conformal mapping, and plasmonic cloaking.
One of the major bottlenecks in future experimental realizations of opti-
cal cloaks is the development of robust,lossless,three-dimensional metamate-
rials at optical frequencies.Theoretically,Silveirinha,Alù,and Engheta (2007)
have introduced metamaterial composite structures that could be used for
cloak designs, and Xie et al. (2011) have proposed an invisibility cloak design
using only silver nanowires. Though the experimental side is difficult, bulk
metamaterials that function in at visible and near-infrared wavelengths have
been achieved on a limited scale.Yao et al. (2008) has demonstrated negative
refraction in collections of silver nanowires, whileValentine et al. (2008) has
produced a fishnet structure of silver to similar effect.
7. RELATED APPLICATIONS
The insights gained from research on cloaking have not been restricted
to optical invisibility. Cloaking concepts have been introduced in a variety of
98 Greg Gbur
Figure 16 Illustration of a seafloor-based cloak for water waves. (Figure from Alam
(2012)) Copyright American Physical Society.
been done by Milton, Briane, and Willis (2006). A particular form of cylin-
drical cloak has been introduced by Brun, Guenneau, and Movchan (2009).
Recently, experiments have been done to demonstrate elastic cloaking in
thin plates (Stenger, Wilhelm, & Wegener, 2012). One possible application
of such elastic cloaking is the protection of buildings from seismic waves.
Parnell (2012) has considered using pre-stressed elements to guide waves
around a protected target, while Kim and Das (2012) has suggested that seis-
mic waves could be converted to evanescent ones and dissipated in the cloak,
preventing collateral damage to nearby structures.
A two-dimensional cloak, in essence,“stretches” space in the x − y plane
away from the origin x = 0, y = 0. If one conceptually replaces y by the
time variable t, the result is a spacetime cloak, as first envisioned by McCall,
Favaro, Kinsler, and Boardman (2011). The effect of such a cloak on a pulse
is illustrated in Figure 17a. The spacetime cloak was experimentally realized
by Fridman, Farsi, Okawachi, and Gaeta (2012), by using a “split-time lens”
to produce chirped red-shifted and blue-shifted sections of a CW beam.
A dispersive fiber was used to separate the frequency-shifted regions, pro-
ducing a 50 picosecond gap. Beyond this, a dispersion-compensated fiber
brought the regions together again, and the chirp was undone by a second
split-time lens. This configuration is illustrated in Figure 17b. A nonlinear
optical phenomenon was used as the “event” to hide from the CW beam.
We conclude this section by noting that a number of other unusual devices
and phenomena have been created by the use of transformation optics. An
early discussion of the possibilities was presented by Leonhardt and Philbin
100 Greg Gbur
(a) (b)
time
optical
fiber
“split-time
laser lens”
event
region
“split-time
lens” dispersion-
detecort compensating
fiber
position
Figure 17 Illustrating (a) the action of a temporal cloak on a pulse, in terms of space
and time coordinates and (b) the experimental setup used to realize such cloak.
(2006). It was shown by Leonhardt (2009) that a Maxwell’s fish eye lens
is a transformation medium and can produce a perfect image, albeit in the
unusual case when both source and image lie within the lens. Transforma-
tion optics has been used to design reflectionless beam shifters and split-
ters (Rahm, Cummer, Schurig, Pendry, & Smith, 2008), as well as lossless
fiber bends (Roberts, Rahm, Pendry, & Smith, 2008), fiber-to-chip cou-
plers (Markov,Valentine, & Weiss, 2012) and light squeezers and expanders
(García-Meca et al., 2011).
Transformation optics also has the potential to model the behavior of
light around celestial bodies, both real and hypothetical (Genov, Zhang, &
Zhang, 2009). For instance, Chen, Miao, and Li (2010) introduced a trans-
formation that mimics the behavior of light outside the event horizon of a
Schwarzschild black hole. A detailed physical model of a black hole, however,
must also include warpings of time as well as space; Philbin et al. (2008) have
experimentally implemented a fiber-optic analog of a black hole’s event hori-
zon. Perhaps even more unusual, Greenleaf, Kurylev, Lassas, and Uhlmann
(2007a) have introduced the concept of an electromagnetic wormhole.
Figure 18 (a) Original 1897 advertisement for “The Invisible Man.” (b) Illustration from
a 1906 publication of “The Shadow and the Flash” in The Windsor Magazine.
be made the same as that of air; for then there would be no refraction or reflection
as the light passed from glass to air.”
By the end of the tale, it is revealed in Morgan’s own diary that he was being
stalked by a creature unseen:
“It is known to seamen that a school of whales basking or sporting on the surface
of the ocean, miles apart, with the convexity of the earth between them, will
sometimes dive at the same instant—all gone out of sight in a moment. The
signal has been sounded—too grave for the ear of the sailor at the masthead and
his comrades on the deck—who nevertheless feel its vibrations in the ship as the
stones of a cathedral are stirred by the bass of the organ.
As with sounds, so with colors. At each end of the solar spectrum the chemist can
detect the presence of what are known as ‘actinic’ rays. They represent colors–
integral colors in the composition of light—which we are unable to discern. The
human eye is an imperfect instrument; its range is but a few octaves of the real
‘chromatic scale’ I am not mad; there are colors that we can not see.
And, God help me! the Damned Thing is of such a color!”
The “actinic” rays are what are now known as ultraviolet (UV) light. The
discovery of UV,infrared,and X-rays drove home in the public consciousness
that there are significant and powerful things unseen by the naked eye.
This idea of an invisible creature, or of making a living creature invisible,
sounds outlandish. However, it should be noted that in 2011 a new reagent
called Scale was introduced that can make organic tissue highly transparent
(Hama et al., 2011).This reagent was only used on dead tissue, but one of the
authors suggested more ambitious possibilities in a news article (Gonzalez,
2011):
We are currently investigating another, milder candidate reagent which would
allow us to study live tissue in the same way, at somewhat lower levels of trans-
parency. This would open the door to experiments that have simply never been
possible before.
space, inside which objects can be hidden. They say it is possible to guide light
around the hole, rather like water flowing around a rock in a river, so that the
object inside it cannot be seen.
One curious question remains: what inspired the first scientific explana-
tions of invisibility given by F.J. O’Brien and H.G.Wells? No direct evidence
survives, as O’Brien’s private correspondence was lost and Wells notoriously
did not discuss the inspiration for his writing. However, from the above
descriptions, we can make a reasonable guess.
Wells’ discussion of making powdered glass invisible by submerging it in
water is a very good clue. In a paper by Coblentz (1904), written at about
the same time as Wells’ book, we find the following remark:
Occasionally there appear notices of methods for making objects invisible by
selecting combinations of media having about the same index of refraction as
the immersed solid. This subject was first investigated by Christiansen in 1884. His
object was to show that white powders are transparent.
The discovery by Christiansen (1884) being referenced is now known as
a Christiansen filter. A powder placed in an index-matched liquid will become
quite transparent; however, because the liquid and the powder typically have
different dispersive properties, the mixture will in general transmit light over
a narrow range of wavelengths and strongly scatter at all others.This research
was quite popular at the time of Wells’ education, and as it is known that he
read textbooks on physics and optics, he was likely aware of it.
It should be noted that Coblentz mentions another piece of work on
Christiansen filters, the aforementioned article by Wood (1902):
The most recent notice on this subject is by Wood, who dissolved chloralhydrate
in glycerine. This solution has almost the same dispersion as glass, and finely
powdered glass, in it, is transparent without showing a trace of Christiansen’s
colors.
We discussed another aspect of this paper at the beginning of this review,
bringing us in a sense full circle. Wood introduced his article on his crude
invisibility device by demonstrating how transparent objects can be made
invisible by index-matching.
But where did Christiansen get the inspiration for his own experiments?
He references the pioneering and influential optics work of Newton (1721)
himself. Isaac Newton described in detail how transparent objects may be
made unseen by the use of index-matching (page 221):
But the truth of this Proposition will farther appear by observing, that in the
Superficies interceding two transparent Mediums, (such as are Air, Water, oil, com-
mon Glass, Crystal, metalline Glasses, Island Glasses, white transparent Arsenick,
106 Greg Gbur
9. CONCLUDING REMARKS
We have seen in this article that invisibility has a long and varied history
in both science and science fiction. The observations of early science fiction
visionaries highlight how far the science of cloaking, and more generally
transformation optics, have come. Though science fiction has anticipated
many of the discoveries in optical physics, it is fair to say that the science has
now surpassed it. With concepts such as optical black holes, temporal cloaks,
external cloaks, and perfect lenses, the science has gone beyond the wildest
dreams of many a science fiction author.
It would be dangerous to try and predict where the study of transfor-
mation optics and cloaking will go even within the next few years. It seems
Invisibility Physics: Past, Present, and Future 107
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank Elisa Hurwitz, Charlotte Stahl and Dr.Yalong Gu for a careful
reading of the manuscript, and to Susumu Tachi of Tokyo University and David Smith of
Duke University for the use of their photographs. This article is dedicated to Milo.
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