(Image source: Autonomous U. of Barcelona)

BY TRACY PFEIFFER

ANCHOR MEGAN MURPHY

Researchers in Barcelona say they’ve discovered how to create a magnetic invisibility cloak.

It’s called an “antimagnet,” and as The Register explains...

“No, I don’t mean ‘non-magnetic’: if you wrap a magnet in cotton, you can still detect the magnet outside. ‘Anti-magnetic’ means you can put a magnet inside and not detect it from the outside, and similarly, from the inside, you can’t detect outside magnetic fields.”

ScienceNOW reports, it all starts with a superconductor.

“All a researcher needs to do is to encase the object in a container made of a ‘superconductor,’ a material that will carry electrical current without any resistance when it is cooled sufficiently close to absolute zero. If the container encounters a magnetic field, currents within the conductor will flow to generate a field that counteracts the applied field.”

But as io9 reports, the catch is, if you wrap something in a superconductor, something outside the cloak would still sense some sort of disturbance in its magnetic field.

“The only solution is to line the other side of the magnetic invisibility cloak with metamaterials. Each metamaterial would have a different permeability to magnetic fields, building the illusion that the outside magnetic field was penetrating the inside of the cloak. The overall impression would be of a blank stretch of space, covering the magnetic field inside and letting it pass by undetected.”

And while it might not have the same individual implications as Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak, the setup could help military vessels avoid underwater bombs that detonate on sensing magnetic fields.

Scientists also predict such a setup could help in the medical field.

According to Gizmodo, an antimagnetic cloak could allow medical patients with pacemakers get MRI scans.

“The magnetic field of the MRI would damage the pacemaker and potentially harm the patient. Likewise, the pacemaker's metal would interfere with the MRI's magnetic field and throw off the machine's results. A magnetic cloak could potentially negate these effects...”

But such a contraption is still pretty far from today’s technology. MIT material science professor Caroline Ross told Discovery News, if you want these procedures right now, be prepared to get cold.

“...nobody has been able to make superconducting materials at room temperature. The best right now is 77 degrees Kelvin (or minus 200 C). …She also pointed out that superconductors don't function in the presence of powerful magnetic fields, the kinds given off by MRI devices.”

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