Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 At this rate, Harry Potter skeptics may soon be left with no place to hide. Two new materials that bend light backward suggest that invisibility cloaks like Harry’s could some day become feasible.
The two materials, one described in a paper to appear in Science and the other reported online by Nature on August 11, take different approaches toward the same goal, says Xiang Zhang of the University of California, Berkeley, senior author of both papers. That goal is to bend light in the opposite direction than it would when entering an ordinary material.
![Scientists have revealed two new materials that bend light the way a good invisibility cloak should. This one, shown at left as an artist’s impression and at right under an electron microscope, is made of alternating layers of silver and an electrical insulator.](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/8516.jpg?resize=300%2C136&ssl=1)
For example, light bends at the surface of a pond, making fish look larger and closer than they really are. If water bent light the opposite way, fish would instead appear to float above the surface.
The possibility of reverse bending has been known for decades, but it wasn’t until 2000 that scientists demonstrated materials that could do the trick. The first demonstrations worked for microwave radiation, which has longer wavelengths than those of light. And last year, the first materials began to appear that could bend visible light backward.