3-D Terahertz Cloaking

A research team from Northwestern and Oklahoma State universities claims to be first to cloak a three-dimensional object from view in a broad range of Terahertz frequency light, which lies between infrared and microwaves. The team's paper will be presented at this year's Conference on Lasers and Electro Optics (CLEO: 2011, May 1 – 6 in Baltimore).

In the team’s paper, Cheng Sun of Northwestern describes how a rigid sponge-like cloaking structure less than 10 millimeters long on a side was built up in 220 layers, each precisely defined to vary the index of refraction and bend light to render invisible anything located beneath a shallow concave bump on the cloak’s bottom surface. The group showed that both the physical geometry and the spectrographic signature of a chemical strip about the width of 10 human hairs disappeared when cloaked.

Despite its Harry Potter-like allure, concealing tiny objects from view is not the team’s ultimate goal, Sun said. Rather, this latest demonstration shows that the new “transformation optics” principles and 3-D lithography techniques they used to make the cloak can also enable optical components for guiding, collimating, and focusing terahertz light in a variety of ways—in new medical and scientific diagnostic tools, airport security scanners, and data communication devices.

Presentation, CWA5, “Three-dimensional Terahertz Cloak,” by Cheng Sun et al. is at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 4.

CLEO: 2011 Program Information
CLEO: 2011 unites the fields of lasers and optoelectronics by bringing together all aspects of laser technology, from basic research to industry applications. The main broad topics areas at the meeting are fundamental science, science and innovations, applications and technology, and market focus. An exposition featuring 300 participating companies will be held concurrently with the scientific presentations.

Plenary Session keynote speakers include Donald Keck, retired vice president of Corning, talking about making the first low-loss optical fibers; James Fujimoto of MIT, talking about medical imaging using optical coherence tomography (OCT); Mordechai (Moti) Segev of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, speaking about the localization of light; and Susumu Noda of Kyoto University, talking about the control of photons in photonic crystals.

Online resources:

• Conference program: http://www.cleoconference.org/Conference_Program
• CLEO: Expo: http://www.cleoconference.org/exhibit_hall
• Press Center: http://www.cleoconference.org/media_center
• Plenary Session: http://www.cleoconference.org/Conference_Program
• Special Symposia: http://www.cleoconference.org/Conference_Program/symposia.aspx

• Conference Registration: http://www.cleoconference.org/registration

Press Registration
A Press Room for credentialed press and analysts will be located on-site in the Baltimore Convention Center, Sunday, May 1 – Thursday, May 5. Media interested in attending the conference should register online at http://www.cleoconference.org/media_center/mediaregistrationform.aspx or contact Angela Stark at 202.416.1443, astark@osa.org.
About CLEO
With a distinguished history as the industry's leading event on laser science, the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) and the Quantum Electronics Laser Science Conference (QELS) is where laser technology was first introduced. CLEO: 2011 will unite the field of lasers and electro-optics by bringing together all aspects of laser technology, with content stemming from basic research to industry application. Sponsored by the American Physical Society's (APS) Laser Science Division, the Institute of Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Photonics Society and the Optical Society (OSA), CLEO: 2011 provides the full range of critical developments in the field, showcasing the most significant milestones from laboratory to marketplace. With an unparalleled breadth and depth of coverage, CLEO: 2011 connects all of the critical vertical markets in lasers and electro-optics. For more information, visit the conference's website at www.cleoconference.org.