It’s not quite the invisibility cloak from Harry Potter, but we’re getting there.
The material, dubbed Quantum Stealth, has been developed by Hyperstealth which is a “Canadian camouflage design company”. The “invisible” material is as thin as paper, inexpensive, and requires no power source. While it doesn’t work quite as well as the magical cloak I described, it does do a pretty good job of concealing objects.
A GIF showing how the material works.
The way it works, is the material can bend light in a way that means only things very close or very far away can be seen. So an object or person placed behind it, at a certain distance, will become invisible.
“The material has quite the broadband capability and is able to bend light from mid- and near-ultraviolet to the infrared. Given the lower resolution of cameras that work outside the visible light spectrum, the effect becomes a lot more pronounced and remarkable when the material is viewed through them.”
The technology started being developed by Hyperstealth’s Guy Cramer in 2010, and since then he’s been working with military organisations to develop the material.
You can see the promotional video made by the company below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFp1KY5KqcI
