'Nanofishnet' Could Be the First Metamaterial to Impossibly Bend Light in the Visible Spectrum
The Nanofishnet Array: Layers of Silver and Glass Carlos García Meca via IEEE Spectrum Metamaterials hold the elusive promise of the true invisibility cloak, one that bends light right around objects to make them invisible to viewers. But most metamaterials with any kind of potential can only be fabricated in very small sizes, and even the ones that work well--and there are a few--generally don't work in the visible spectrum. But researchers from Spain and the UK have reported that they have constructed what may be the first practical metamaterial that works in the visible range. The material was designed with optical switching in mind--sub-picosecond pulsing of light in fiber optics networks or in highly tuned pulsing lasers--but the researchers themselves are convinced that its layered structure could be scaled up into usable, practically-sized objects. Everyone in the materials science community isn't so optimistic, but the fact that it works at...