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Originally published in Science Express on 20 November 2008
Science 2 January 2009:
Vol. 323. no. 5910, pp. 110 - 112
DOI: 10.1126/science.1166332
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Reports

Broadband Invisibility by Non-Euclidean Cloaking

Ulf Leonhardt1,2* and Tomás Tyc2,3

Invisibility and negative refraction are both applications of transformation optics where the material of a device performs a coordinate transformation for electromagnetic fields. The device creates the illusion that light propagates through empty flat space, whereas in physical space, light is bent around a hidden interior or seems to run backward in space or time. All of the previous proposals for invisibility require materials with extreme properties. Here we show that transformation optics of a curved, non-Euclidean space (such as the surface of a virtual sphere) relax these requirements and can lead to invisibility in a broad band of the spectrum.

1 Physics Department, National University of Singapore, 2 Science Drive 3, Singapore 117542, Singapore.
2 School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St. Andrews, North Haugh, St. Andrews, KY16 9SS, UK.
3 Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, Masaryk University, Kotlarska 2, 61137 Brno, Czech Republic.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ulf{at}st-andrews.ac.uk

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)