Scientists have taken a big step towards blending reality with what was once only fantasy, by making an object "disappear" using a cloaking device similar in many ways to the "invisibility cloak" in the Harry Potter novels. 

Or maybe like the cloaking device used by Klingons and Romulans in the Star Trek TV shows and movies, which really did it first in pop culture, decades before Harry Potter.  But not the invisible car in that Bond movie, that was lame.

Anyway, scientists at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) created a cloak using a composite material with nano-size particles that can enhance specific properties on the object's surface.  They coated acurved surface with the material which has seven distinct layers (called graded index nanocomposite) where the electric property of each layer varies depending on the position.  Normally, curves in an object would scatter electromagnetic waves and make its presence obvious.  But the nanocomposite medium made it appear to be "flat", effectively cloaking it from detection.

"Previous research has shown this technique working at one frequency," said QMUL's Professor Yan Hao.  "However, we can demonstrate that it works at a greater range of frequencies, making it more useful for other engineering applications such as nano-antennas and the aerospace industry."

QMUL's Dr Luigi La Spada added, "We demonstrated a practical possibility to use nanocomposites to control wave propagation through advanced additive manufacturing.  Perhaps most importantly, the approach used can be applied to other physical phenomena that are described by wave equations, such as acoustics.  For this reason, we believe that this work has a great industrial impact."

A paper describing the work was published in the latest edition of the journal Scientific Reports.f the journal Scientific Report.