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Dr Robert Thompson from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics may not look like a magician, but his research on the concept of invisibility “cloaking” sounds like something straight out of Hogwarts.

The postdoctoral research fellow, who began his research at the University of Otago in 2009, has worked closely with the mathematical theory behind the science of invisibility.

However, Thompson is quick to dispel any misconceptions about his research. “It’s not magic. It’s not science fiction,” he says. The science is called “transformation optics,” a science concerned largely with the behaviour and perception of light. Utilising the latest in transformation optics, Thompson’s research could place New Zealand on the map of this emerging science.

In theory, an invisibility “cloak” uses a device called a “split-ring resonator,” made of a “meta-material,” to bend light around an object. The cloaking device acts like a lens, “taking the light that’s coming from one direction and diverting it around some central region,” explains Thompson, “and then sending it on its way as if nothing was there. No shadow, no reflection.” He says, “the idea is you want to open up some kind of hole where the light can’t get into.”

It is the use of “meta-materials,” ultimately man-made, engineered materials, which offers the ability to manipulate light. “You have total control over the behaviour of light as it passes through your meta-material,” states Thompson. “This gives you total control of the light and allows you to do some bizarre things that you wouldn’t find in nature.” By specifying the orientation of the meta-material antennae, a person can manipulate the straight lines of light found naturally, and, at least in theory, move light around an object – thus rendering the object “invisible.”

Thompson stresses the importance of these meta-materials as the “future of electronics.

“We’re at the forefront of this technology … we’re at the brink of a technological revolution.”

“I think we’re going to see meta-materials popping up in all kinds of electronic devices,” furthers Thompson, “and so transformation optics [becomes] a really important design tool in taking those meta-materials and figuring out what to do with them.”

Thompson is continuing work on the concept and has been working in collaboration with researchers from Duke University in the United States, receiving $345,000 over three years under the Marsden Fund Fast-Start grant scheme.