But to gasps from the audience, a scientist from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore demonstrated an experiment that appears to make it more than the stuff of fantasy.
A small box made of calcite optical crystal was used to bend light around an object, making anything placed behind the box appear invisible to people watching the demonstration at the TED conference.
Professor Baile Zhang said he was inspired to create the invisibility device “just for fun”. “I just think the idea is cool,” he said. “Plus, I hope this work will demonstrate that simple tools can sometimes fulfil important functions that previously required complicated methods.”
Professor Zhang admitted that his research was in its early stages, and said that his team was still working out how to make larger and more useful prototypes of the invisibility cloak, according to The Times.
“There are still many limitations here and I don’t have the answers for how to solve them,” he said. “At this stage, this is already the best we can do. There will be quite a long way to go before it can be applied on a practical level. But all researchers in this field, including myself, are making progress, albeit slowly.”
He said that his work with calcite might have more uses than hiding objects, as the substance could also help to improve optical fibres, such as that cables used for broadband internet, or create better “imaging” products such as digital cameras.
It has previously emerged that scientists in the United States have been working on their own version of the invisibility cloak.
The work uses novel materials to manipulate light, a trick that is of huge interest to the military in particular.
Reporting in the New Journal of Physics, researchers at the University of Texas in Austin cloaked a 7.2-inch cylindrical tube from light in the microwave part of the energy spectrum.
This is thought to have great military potential, as a warplane cloaked with such materials could achieve "super-stealth" status by becoming invisible in all directions to radar microwaves
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