Light Bending Materials

It has been a dream of sci-fi writers and military leaders alike to be able to have invisible soldiers  to gain that advantage ontheir foes.  Now scientists at the California Institute of Technology have developed a smart material that does just that. The way it works is that as light hits this new material,negative index
metamaterial (NIM) ,it doesn’t just bounce back as it usually does in materials. Instead light passes through this in adjustable way. While this is not a new idea or a completely new technology, the way they get the light to bend is a little more innovative and effective; as it works specially well in the sun. The new thing that makes this material so much more interesting is the fact that it is tunable in the sense that you can change how drastic the change is.  It also has light harvesting capabilities since it absorbs light at a large variety of angles and it is easy to move around and to make

 

Negative Index Metamaterials could have multiple applications however; not just ones for the military. For example, it could be used as an effective cover for cars of things in a yard to avoid ugly covers while making it blend in a little more naturally into your environment. Since what it shows is constantly changing, they could be  used as a dynamic fabric for clothing.  Since it absorbs a lot of solar energy, scientist are also talking about it’s uses in clothing or other places for collecting sunlight as a form of energy.