Image Source: Escapist Magazine

BY GINA COOK

ANCHOR EMILY SPAIN

A breakthrough has been made in the latest attempt to create an invisibility cloak.  It’s something that’s long been coveted by Harry Potter fans and Sci-Fi geeks alike.

Ron: “Whoah!”

Harry: “My body’s gone!”

Ron: “I know what that is! That’s an Invisibility Cloak!”

But before you get your hopes up...the cloak is well...a lot different than the one donned by Harry.

"The State Column says researchers used a method called “plasmonic cloaking” to hide an 18 centimeter cylindrical tube from microwaves."

Ortwin Hess is a professor of metamaterials at Imperial College London.  He says for BBC

"There are some limits on where these things can be applied, but nevertheless it's really, really interesting and fundamental indeed."

Co-lead investigator of the experiment, Andrea Alu, says one future use for the method would be to give warplanes “super-stealth” status.

"What we are thinking about is not necessarily cloaking the whole warplane but some hot spots, a part such as the tailplane that you would want to cloak because it reflects most of the energy (from microwave radar)."

So while the technology may be a breakthrough...Professor Alu says we won’t see the real benefits for a few years.