Broadband cloaking and mirages with flying carpets

Area of Science:

• Electromagnetism and Acoustics
• Metamaterials and Cloaking Technologies

Background:

• Extends Li and Pendry's invisibility carpet concept.
• Applies to infinite conducting planes and cylinders, and acoustic waves.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigates levitating and attached invisibility carpets.
• Demonstrates cloaking for objects under levitating carpets.
• Generalizes carpet concept to square and circular cylinders.

Main Methods:

• Theoretical extension of invisibility carpet proposals.
• Analysis of wave scattering from cloaked objects.
• Design of multi-layered carpets using isotropic homogeneous dielectrics or fluids.

Main Results:

• Levitating carpets provide approximate cloaking for objects underneath.
• Tent-like carpets generalize wall-mounted concepts to compact objects.
• Circular carpets hide defects, scattering waves like smaller cylinders.
• All proposed carpets utilize non-singular parameters.

Conclusions:

• Demonstrates the versatility of invisibility carpets for various geometries and wave types.
• Highlights the practical advantage of non-singular carpet parameters.
• Proposes a multi-layered dielectric/fluid carpet for broadband cloaking.