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back to article Boffins develop greenhouse invisible to night-vision goggles

Boffins in the States say they have designed a "glass cloak" which renders objects within it invisible in the infrared spectrum. Prof Elena Semouchkina and her colleagues developed the "cloak", which reportedly bends micron wavelengths around its interior. Micron-length waves are in the near infrared, the part of the …

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  1. Marvin the Martian

    Applications in movies?

    If you have an infrared(only)viewing vampire, he could be tricked?

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Any bets...

    that marijuana growers will be first to test this in real world?

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    1. Captain TickTock
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Wavelength Emission Elimination Device...

      ... W.E.E.D.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      These are not the plants you are looking for.

      </hand wave> </jedi-voice>

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  3. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    Metamaterials are fascinating

    although, i don't really think "metamaterial" is that good a name.. After all they are actual materials, just ones with unusual properties. But i suppose they have to be called something. Quantum physics in action 8-)

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  4. NoneSuch Silver badge
    Joke

    People who live in glass houses

    So all we need to defeat this technology is a Predator style face mask which can scan in all bands from infrared to ultraviolet.

    Now why can they not invent THAT.

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    1. Captain TickTock
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      Mud is all you need...

      just paint your greenhouse with it and ugly-chops won't be able to see you.

      Just be ready to get underwater when his thermonuclear wristwatch goes off.

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  5. Disco-Legend-Zeke
    Pint

    The Major Players...

    ...in the greenhouse covering market offer infrared reflecting plastic in film and sheets.

    The selling point being reflecting heat back into the structure. This would perform about the same, I imagine.

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  6. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. OrsonX
      Reply Icon
      IT Angle

      thermal invisibility shack!

      I have wondered about the possibility of snipers having their own "thermal invisibility shack" or outfit. Blocking the radiated heat seems straightforward-ish, the suit could be water cooled. BUT, where does the heat go? Clearly a hollow-tree exhaust is ineffective! In fact ANY kind of exhaust is a give-away, so a means of collecting heat for later release is needed. Is there any way to achieve this?

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  7. ian 22
    WTF?

    Amazing!

    If I understood correctly, they say that I could be invisible by hiding in my shed at night!

    Will they patent this discovery?

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    1. Danny 14
      Reply Icon

      yup

      works for all the pikeys round here.

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  8. Antony Riley
    FAIL

    (untitled)

    Surely diving in a river to cool off, then rolling in the mud on the bank is enough?

    Works for Arnie.

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Why boffins??

    I've just noticed the prevalence of the word boffin in Lewis Page's generally entertaining articles. Why does he insist on using this word so frequently when referring to scientists? As far as I'm concerned it's akin to calling all IT professionals geeks or journalists journo's. It hardly portrays scientists in a positive light. Okay, sometimes it might be deserved but please give the poor people a break.

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    1. Brutus
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      because

      It's actually an affectionate term of respect and an aknowledgement of scientific or engineering expertise.

      The wikipedia discussion page actually has a nice piece by a US boffin.

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  10. JasonH
    Joke

    Ahem...

    Nothing to see here, move along now, nothing to see now, move along...

    Ahem. Sorry, I'll just grab my coat... :-)

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  11. Tom 7

    Thermal Imagers not needed

    You never drunk 20 pints and tried to walk around with a shed on your head.

    Noisy to say the least!

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  12. MrAverage
    FAIL

    This just in...

    Boffins simulate almost-invisible shed using computers!

    ...in other news - dark looming storm clouds precipitate rain in England

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    1. Velv
      Reply Icon
      Coat

      Computermabob

      Boffins also predicted Holland would win the World Cup using a computer (as featured in El Reg - you now owe me £100)

      Lie's, damned lies and statistical anomolies :)

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  13. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Boffin

    Not just the glass

    From the abstract it seems to have some grating patten cut into it. Presumably if it were just the material they could whip up a (small) batch of there own and. Gratings normally need to be *below* the wavelength of what they are trying to affect. So we are in wafer fab territory (not *deep* in, Mercury vapour lamp at c300nm should be up for the job) but glass etching is typically Hydrofloric Acid which is *very* nasty, unless you go with an electrochemical method (amazingly glass *can* be electrochemically machined and there are several papers on it from Korean and Japanese researchers).

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  14. neb
    Happy

    shhhh!

    don't mention sheds else the shedii will be swarming all over this

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    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Reply Icon
      Pint

      @neb

      You mean..

      The Return of the Shedii.

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  15. Big-nosed Pengie

    Excellent!

    Now my tomatoes will be safe from nocturnal night vision goggle-wearing tomato theives!

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  16. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    Aha!

    So all I need is to take a thermally invisible greenhouse and put it *inside* a visibly invisible tin shed and I can sit inside the whole thing all invisible like.

    Wait.....Ultraviolet you say?

    Mine's the one that looks suspiciously like an enormous set of Matroska dolls coated in radar-reflective paint, or it would if you could see it.....

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  17. Dave Bell

    Meanwhile, in Sadville,,,

    There's already a way of doing this in Second Life, with something called an "invisiprim".

    All that glass on the battlefield, just think what that will do when a blast bomb goes off.

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