“Invisibility Cloak: Chinese Scientists Develop Substance That Could Hide Objects from Radar”

NEW DELHI: A group of researchers from Jilin and Tsinghua Universities in China have cleverly combined traits from the glass frog, bearded dragon, and chameleon to create a hybrid material, based on the legend of the Chimera. According to a South China Morning Post article, this substance claims to be undetectable throughout a spectrum that encompasses microwave, visible light, and infrared wavelengths in an attempt to create the illusive invisibility cloak.

The research, which was published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, presents a bionics-based solution to the drawbacks of existing camouflage methods, which often malfunction in a variety of environments. According to the researchers, “Our work constitutes a big advance towards new-generation reconfigurable electromagnetics [that can] change circuit topologies and transitions camouflage technologies from the constrained scenario to ever-changing terrains.”
This innovative study makes use of the quick developments in metamaterials, which are well-known for their extraordinary capacity to bend electromagnetic waves and perhaps make things invisible to radar. The glass frog’s transparency, the bearded dragon’s ability to regulate body temperature, and the chameleon’s ability to adjust to color are all combined in the proposed Chimera metamaterial, which takes its name from the mythical monster made of many animals.
The flexibility of the Chimera metasurface was noted by lead author Xu Zhaohua of Jilin University, who said, “It was ‘interesting that suitable working states of the Chimera metasurface can be found to match all the five terrains over the whole frequency range of interest’.”
The design of the Chimera metamaterial is modeled from the chameleon’s ability to blend its capabilities of microwave reflection with a variety of landscapes. It also takes inspiration from the glass frog, which is recognized for hiding the majority of its blood in the liver during sleep and being almost invisible. To get a comparable degree of optical transparency, its circuitry is embedded between PET plastic and quartz glass layers.
The researchers looked to the bearded dragon’s excellent thermal control to address the problem of hiding the heat produced by the metamaterial’s circuits. The Chimera’s thermal footprint is reduced to a minuscule 3.1 degrees Celsius (5.6 Fahrenheit) by using a mechanically powered architecture, which makes it almost undetectable to thermal imaging over a variety of terrains.
This technology has a wide range of potential uses, from military operations—where it could provide important strategic advantages—to wildlife conservation—where it might make it possible to observe animals in their natural environments without causing any harm and so support conservation efforts. The researchers’ inventive energy and the possibility of multidisciplinary cooperation in pushing the limits of science and technology are shown by the Chimera metamaterial.