A researcher at the NUP/UPNA-Public University of Navarre has developed two types of invisibility cloak. One of them is useful in concealing sensors and antennas and thus eliminating interference, which would improve the performance of communications systems. The other can be applied in diffuse mediums such as human tissue, which is of interest for biology and medicine. This research is based on metamaterials, which are artificial structures designed to display characteristics not found in nature.

“Invisibility cloaks can be used not only to hide objects from our eyes, as occurs, for example, in science fiction films,” explained the researcher Bakhtiyar Orazbayev. “In the case of antennas located very close to each other, interference may arise. But if the antennas are rendered invisible by placing a thin layer of invisibility based on a metasurface around them, the signals will be clear because these antennas will not ‘feel’ the other ones and there will be less interference. This can also be applied to sensors, which tend to incorporate interference into the measurements they provide. This system could potentially prevent them from incorporating this interference."

Another of the contributions of his research, conducted in the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, was the design of an invisibility cloak for diffuse light, which could be applied to diffuse mediums such as tissue or fog. “This is of interest for fields such a biology and medicine. In surgery an object, a scalpel, for example, which might be in the patient’s body could be concealed and thus enable the surgeon to see the organ without any obstacles and improve precision in the cuts. What is more, this cloak would also help to measure the distance between objects in fog when there are undesirable elements present,” he said.

This work also includes the development of three types of high-resolution lens, which improve radar and telecommunications systems. “Thanks to the use of these lenses, it is possible to produce more compact antennas thus providing optimum performance. Applied to telecommunications systems, they can be used to send a signal between two points a long way from each other, in other words, the receiver and transmitter can be positioned further away from each other yet the signal is guaranteed,” he concluded.