Invisibility at the flick of a switch
This is what you'd see if the system worked with the atoms in your handAdverts for x-ray specs have tantalised kids throughout the decades. Sadly the reality is always a pair of useless plastic glasses, but this could all change due to a breakthrough made at Imperial College London. By exploiting the way that atoms move in solids the researchers have made solid materials turn completely transparent. 'This real life x-ray specs effect relies on a property of matter that is usually ignored that the electrons it contains move in a wave-like way', says Chris Phillips. 'What we have learnt is how to control these waves directly'.
The secret to this breakthrough at Imperial College London is specially patterned crystals made up of nanoscale boxes that hold electrons. 'Basically we have made 'designer atoms'', says Chris. 'By choosing the size and shape of our little boxes, we can use the rules of quantum mechanics to choose the energy levels of the electrons that are trapped inside them'. When light is shone on these crystals it becomes entangled at a molecular level rather than being absorbed, causing the material to become transparent. 'You can think of the effect as similar to the way that the peaks and troughs of water waves cancel each other out to create calm water', explains Mark Frogley. 'In the materials created it is the wave patterns of the electrons that cancel each other allowing light to travel through the material and making it transparent'. At the moment the effect can only be produced in a lab under specific conditions but future applications could include seeing through rubble at earthquake sites, or looking at parts of the body obscured by bone.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/exhibit.asp?id=4659&tip=1:wow:
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