Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 9, 2025

Fabricating van der Waals Heterostructures with Precise Rotational Alignment
Published on: July 5, 2019
Nearly Ideal Transparency with Artificially Designed Meta-Atoms
Chun Wang1, Xiaojun Hu1, Liang Peng2
1Laboratory of Applied Research on Electromagnetics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China.
Abstract:
The ideal electromagnetic transparency refers to the ability of an object to remain scatteringless to any incoming waves, resulting in vacuum invisibility. However, natural solid substances can hardly be transparent in free space as they are responsive to external polarizations. Completely eliminating the polarization effect of an obstacle under arbitrary field illumination is a long-standing scientific challenge. Here, it is shown that a subwavelength meta-atom can be nearly ideally transparent in the vacuum. The overall vacuum-like property of the meta-atom is achieved through judiciously designing its internal polarization and magnetization. Remarkably, any large-scale objects made by stacking the meta-atoms inherit the vacuum-like property and are scatteringless in free space. By both the simulations and experiments, the meta-atom's peculiar property is reasonably verified. The proposed meta-atoms are excellent candidates for a wide range of applications, such as perfect radar radomes, scatteringless walls, filtering devices, and self-stealth materials.
Related Concept Videos
Molecular Models
Newman Projections
The organic molecules rotate across the single bonds leading to numerous temporary three-dimensional structures of varying energy known as...
Hybridization of Atomic Orbitals I
¹³C NMR: Distortionless Enhancement by Polarization Transfer (DEPT)
Stereoisomerism
Isomers are different chemical species that have the same chemical formula.
Transition metal complexes often exist as geometric isomers, in which the same atoms are connected through the same types of bonds but with differences in their orientation in space. Coordination complexes with two different ligands in the cis and trans positions from a ligand of interest form isomers. For example, the octahedral [Co(NH3)4Cl2]+ ion has two isomers (Figure 1) In the cis...
¹H NMR: Interpreting Distorted and Overlapping Signals
As Δν decreases and the signals move closer, the doublets appear increasingly distorted. The intensities of the inner lines increase at the cost of those of the outer lines as the signals are...

