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Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 243901 (2009) [4 pages]

Electromagnetic Detection of a Perfect Invisibility Cloak

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Baile Zhang and Bae-Ian Wu*
Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA

Received 2 September 2009; revised 2 November 2009; published 7 December 2009

A perfect invisibility cloak is commonly believed to be undetectable from electromagnetic (EM) detection because it is equivalent to a curved but empty EM space created from coordinate transformation. Based on the intrinsic asymmetry of coordinate transformation applied to motions of photons and charges, we propose a method to detect this curved EM space by shooting a fast-moving charged particle through it. A broadband radiation generated in this process makes a cloak visible. Our method is the only known EM mechanism so far to detect an ideal perfect cloak (curved EM space) within its working band.

© 2009 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.243901
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.243901
PACS:
41.20.Jb, 41.60.-m, 42.25.Fx

*biwu@mit.edu