Invisibility-cloak breakthrough

Metamaterials interact with light in ways that appear to violate the laws of physics. They can bend light around an object as if it weren't there, or narrow the resolution of light microscopes down to a few nanometers. But metamaterials must be painstakingly structured at the nano- and microscales in order to achieve these exotic effects. Now the Duke University researcher who built the first invisibility cloak in 2006 has created software that speeds up the design of metamaterials. He and his colleagues have used the program to build a complex light cloak that's invisible to a broad band of microwave light--and they did it in only about 10 days.

Read entire story in Technology Review.