Tunable Visible Cloaking Using Liquid Diffusion

A method is introduced for the design of invisibility cloaks inspired by fluid dynamics that is different from traditional transformation optics. The inhomogeneous refractive index of the liquid cloak controlled by the natural liquid diffusion is analogous to its counterpart designed by transformation optics. Here, a tunable liquid visible cloak is experimentally presented by the natural diffusion of miscible flows. This method avoids the use of complex nanostructures in its solid counterpart, and provides a simple and low‐cost approach. This implies that optofluidics can be used as a technology to make real‐time reconfigurable transformation optic devices.     

An arbitrary-shaped acoustic cloak with merits beyond the internal and external cloaks

Based on transformation acoustics, an arbitrary-shaped acoustic cloak capable of functioning as an information exchange-enabling internal cloak and a movement-allowing external cloak is presented. The general expressions of material parameters for the acoustic cloaks with arbitrarily conformal or non-conformal boundaries are derived, and then the performances of developed cloaks are validated by full-wave simulations. Finally, the different characteristics of the linear and nonlinear transformations-based cloaks are compared and analyzed. The proposed cloak could lead to wider applications beyond that of normal cloaks, since it effectively compensates the insufficiencies of traditional internal and external cloaks. Besides, this work also provides a new method to design bifunctional device and suggests an alternative way to make a large object invisible.     

Bandwidth evaluation of dispersive transformation electromagnetics based devices

In this paper, the transient responses of some devices which are based on transformation electromagnetics are studied, such as invisible cloaks and concentrators, by using the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) numerical technique. In particular, effects of the inherent losses as well as the coating size of the ideal cylindrical cloak on its bandwidth and cloaking performance are examined. In addition, it is demonstrated that the performance of transformation electromagnetics based devices is affected by the material parameters in the design, although they may behave nicely under monochromatic plane wave illuminations. The obtained results are of interest for the future practical implementation of these structures.     

Two-dimensional dissimilar electromagnetic cloak for irregular regions

A general method to design a 2D dissimilar cloak for irregular regions is presented by operating a nonlinear transformation in polar coordinates. The material parameters avoid discontinuities while the thickness of the cloak shell is effectively limited in elongated directions. Full-wave simulations of an elliptic cloak, a rectangular cloak, and an arbitrary-shape cloak are performed to verify the validity of the design. Both the material parameters and the scattering widths of different models are calculated and illustrated for comparison. This method provides a possible approach for designing complex shaped cloaks.     

任意横截面柱形热斗篷研究与设计

基于变换热力学,导出了具有非共形任意横截面的柱形热斗篷热导率表达式,并在此基础上设计了具有非共形横截面的柱形热斗篷.全波仿真结果表明,热斗篷迫使外部热流绕过斗篷,导致隐身区域热通量为零,从而具有热保护功能;同时,热流绕过斗篷后将恢复原来的温度场分布,使其具有完美热隐身功能.此外,基于所导出的变换媒质热导率表达式,设计并求解了具有规则共形和非规则共形横截面的柱形热斗篷,发现它们同样具有热保护和完美热隐身功能.这表明通过选择适当的边界函数,所得变换媒质热导率表达式可用于设计任意横截面柱形热斗篷,具有普遍的适用性,这种技术在计算机芯片、卫星和航天器等的热保护中有潜在应用.     

Nonsingularity in two-dimensional cylindrical invisible cloaks

The method of designing electromagnetic invisible cloaks is usually based on the form-invariance of Maxwell's equations in coordinate transformation. The exterior boundary of a cylindrical invisible cloak is unchanged and the interior boundary is extended from that of a point to that of a cylindrical region in coordination transformation. This transformation process makes perfect cloaks, but it causes singularity in the constitutive material parameters of cloaks. This singularity makes the cloaks impossible to realize in practice. In order to remove this singularity, this paper sets a small cylindrical region replacing a point in the space transformation. The cylindrical region is so small that it does not affect the invisibility effects, but it can remove the singularity for material parameters. Full wave simulations based on the finite element method were used to verify the designed cloaks.     

Multi-window invisible cloaks

This paper reports that a general method of designing invisible cloaks is using variant constitutive material parameters to realize the space transformation. A hollow region can be hidden after this transformation. It was recently shown (Ma H, Qu S B, Xu Z and Wang J F 2009 \wx{Appl. Phys. Lett.}{94} 103501) that when the original point moves to the boundary of a cloak, the cloak can be designed to be open. Based on this theory, we propose multi-window invisible cloaks which can conceal a group of objects. Full wave simulations for invisible cloaks with regular and irregular shapes verified this method.     

Finite elements modelling of scattering problems for flexural waves in thin plates: Application to elliptic invisibility cloaks,rotators and the mirage effect

We propose a finite elements algorithm to solve a fourth order partial differential equation governing the propagation of time-harmonic bending waves in thin elastic plates. Specially designed perfectly matched layers are implemented to deal with the infinite extent of the plates. These are deduced from a geometric transform in the biharmonic equation. To numerically illustrate the power of elastodynamic transformations, we analyze the elastic response of an elliptic invisibility cloak surrounding a clamped obstacle in the presence of a cylindrical excitation i.e. a concentrated point force. Elliptic cloaking for flexural waves involves a density and an orthotropic Young’s modulus which depend on the radial and azimuthal positions, as deduced from a coordinates transformation for circular cloaks in the spirit of Pendry et al. [Science 312, 1780 (2006)], but with a further stretch of a coordinate axis. We find that a wave radiated by a concentrated point force located a couple of wavelengths away from the cloak is almost unperturbed in magnitude and in phase. However, when the point force lies within the coating, it seems to radiate from a shifted location. Finally, we emphasize the versatility of transformation elastodynamics with the design of an elliptic cloak which rotates the wavevector of a flexural wave within its core.     

基于变换热力学的三维任意形状热斗篷设计

在变换热力学的基础上,通过坐标变换的方法,推导出三维任意形状热斗篷导热系数的通解表达式,并进行了全波仿真验证.结果表明:热流均能绕过保护区域流出,保护区域的温度保持不变,而且热斗篷外的温度场并没有破坏,具有很好的热保护和热隐身的效果.这一方法把变换热力学从二维拓展到三维,具有普遍的适用性.同时,这种技术为热流流动路径和目标温度场的控制奠定了理论基础,在微芯片、电动机的保护以及目标热隐身上有潜在应用.     

Cloaking an acoustic sensor with single-negative materials

In this review, a brief introduction is given to the development of acoustic superlens cloaks that allow the cloaked object to receive signals while its presence is not sensed by the surrounding, which can be regarded as “cloaking an acoustic sensor”. Remarkably, the designed cloak consists of single-negative materials with parameters independent of the background medium or the sensor system, which is proven to be a magnifying superlens. This has facilitated significantly the design and fabrication of acoustic cloaks that generally require double-negative materials with customized parameters. Such innovative design has then been simplified further as a multi-layered structure comprising of two alternately arranged complementary media with homogeneous isotropic single-negative materials. Based on this, a scattering analyses method is developed for the numerical simulation of such multi-layered cloak structures, which may serve as an efficient approach for the investigation on such devices.     

Two-Dimensional （2D） Polygonal Electromagnetic Cloaks

Transformation optics offers remarkable control over electromagnetic fields and opens an exciting gateway to design ＇invisible cloak devices＇ recently. We present an important class of two-dimensional （2D） cloaks with polygon geometries. Explicit expressions of transformed medium parameters are derived with their unique properties investigated. It is found that the elements of diagonalized permittivity tensors are always positive within an irregular polygon cloak besides one element diverges to plus infinity and the other two become zero at the inner boundary. At most positions, the principle axes of permittivity tensors do not align with position vectors. An irregular polygon cloak is designed and its invisibility to external electromagnetic waves is numerically verified. Since polygon cloaks can be tailored to resemble any objects, the transformation is finally generalized to the realization of 2D cloaks with arbitrary geometries.     

Design method of reusable reciprocal invisibility and phantom device

Reusable reciprocal invisibility and phantom device is proposed and designed based on multi-folded transformation optics and equivalent components. In comparison with the reported reciprocal invisibility cloaks, the material parameters of the device presented here are homogeneous, and the hiding of the target object does not require any "anti-object" at all, which dramatically breaks through the limitations of the "anti-object" design in previous reciprocal cloak design. Perfectly illusion effect is also found by reasonably setting the material parameters of the restored medium of the device, which can be used to confuse detection radars while hiding target objects. Last but not least, the proposed device has an open structure, which enables the target object enclosed by the device to perform material exchange and simplex transfer of information with the outside world through open channels. In other words, the proposed device has a reusable function, enabling stealth or phantom of new target objects without changing any parameters of the device.     

任意多面体隐身罩材料参数的推导及验证

基于坐标变换理论推导了任意多面体隐身罩的隐身条件,并得到了相应隐身罩材料参数的张量表达式.根据导出的材料参数的张量表达式,通过全波仿真分别对正四面体和十四面体隐身罩进行仿真验证,仿真结果证实了所得材料参数张量表达式的正确性,研究结果为三维复杂形状隐身罩的设计奠定了理论研究基础. 关键词： 坐标变换 多面体隐身罩 张量表达式 全波仿真     

Three dimensional multilayered acoustic cloak with homogeneous isotropic materials

A three-dimensional (3D) spherical acoustic cloak is designed using an acoustic layered system, which can hide an object from the detection of acoustic wave in arbitrary direction. The cloak is constructed from multilayered concentric spherical shells filled with homogeneous isotropic materials. Based on spherical wave expansion method, we confirm that significant low-reflection, acoustic-shadow-reducing, and wavefront-bending effects in 3D space can be achieved by the proposed cloak. The angle distribution of the scattered wave is further evaluated by the far-field scattering pattern. In addition, the cloak is demonstrated to work efficiently in a wide bandwidth in which the cloaking efficiency decreases with increasing frequency. This study may be helpful to design high-performance 3D acoustic cloaks for broadband acoustic waves in all incidence directions.     

While rotating while cloaking

Invisible optical and thermal cloaking have been explored as the typical demonstrations of the transformation optics and thermotics theory. However, the existing cloaks are realized by only one-coordinate transformation, and the cloaking layout, i.e. the form of electromagnetic wave/heat passing around the invisible region, is single for a long time. Here, we propose a new rotated thermal cloak which can unify the conventional cloaking and rotating together, and realize the while-rotating–while-cloaking effect. The required anisotropic thermal conductivity tensor is deduced from the new geometric mapping. Though rotated, the heat flux can be tuned around the central invisible region perfectly by the proposed rotated thermal cloak. The underlying physics is explored by comprehensive analysis of the distribution of the thermal conductivity tensor, which is further compared with those of the conventional cloak and rotator. The experimental feasibility is also discussed by validating the practical while-rotating–while-cloaking effect through a proof-of-concept design. The proposed rotated thermal cloak is expected to extend the possibility of cloaking scheme, and open avenues for the multiple coordinate transformation in counterpart physical fields, like optics, electrics, acoustics, magnetics, mechanics, etc.     

Phase‐preserved macroscopic visible‐light carpet cloaking beyond two dimensions

Transformation optics, a recent geometrical design strategy of light manipulation with both ray trajectories and optical phase controlled simultaneously, promises an invisibility cloaking device that can render a macroscopic object invisible even to a scientific instrument measuring optical phase. Recent “carpet” cloaks have extended their cloaking capability to broadband frequency ranges and macroscopic scales, but they only demonstrated the recovery of ray trajectories after passing through the cloaks, while whether the optical phase would reveal their existence still remains unverified. In this paper, a phase‐preserved macroscopic visible‐light carpet cloak is demonstrated in a geometrical construction beyond two dimensions. As an extension of previous two‐dimensional (2D) macroscopic carpet cloaks, this almost‐three‐dimensional carpet cloak exhibits three‐dimensional (3D) invisibility for illumination near its center (i.e. with a limited field of view), and its ideal wide‐angle invisibility performance is preserved in multiple 2D planes intersecting in the 3D space. Optical path length is measured with a broadband pulsed‐laser interferometer, which provides unique experimental evidence on the geometrical nature of transformation optics.

     

二维椭圆形散射转移斗篷的设计研究

基于变换光学理论设计了椭圆形散射转移斗篷,并推导了相应的本构参数张量表达式,根据得到的本构参数,利用基于有限元算法的软件分别对椭圆形介质柱、导体柱进行了全波仿真验证.仿真结果证实了所得本构参数的正确性,验证了散射转移斗篷可以模拟任意物体,包括介质、导体的幻象,这些结果为设计隐身斗篷提供了一种新的理论途径.     

运用有限差分时域法计算具有径向色散特性的圆柱形隐形斗篷

提出了一种具有径向色散特性有限差分时域法（FDTD法）的电磁隐形斗篷建模.隐形斗篷的介电常数和磁导率是采用了drude色散模型以及相应的色散FDTD算法.数值模拟表明,在理想的条件下,隐形斗篷中的物体对外电磁场是隐形的.对于入射平面波和点声源,波前平滑地进入隐形斗篷,并绕过中心的物体区域,离开隐形斗篷后又恢复为原来的传播状态.远场散射图表明,与一个理想导体圆柱相比隐形斗篷可以减少沿各个方向的散射.     

Cylindrical invisibility cloak with simplified material parameters is inherently visible

It was proposed that perfect invisibility cloaks can be constructed for hiding objects from electromagnetic illumination [J. B. Pendry, D. Schurig, and D. R. Smith, Science 312, 1780 (2006)10.1126/science.1125907]. The cylindrical cloaks experimentally demonstrated [D. Schurig, Science 314, 977 (2006)10.1126/science.1133628] and theoretically proposed [W. Cai, Nat. Photon. 1, 224 (2007)10.1038/nphoton.2007.28] have however simplified material parameters in order to facilitate easier realization as well as to avoid infinities in optical constants. Here we show that the cylindrical cloaks with simplified material parameters inherently allow the zeroth-order cylindrical wave to pass through the cloak as if the cloak is made of a homogeneous isotropic medium, and thus visible. To all high-order cylindrical waves, our numerical simulation suggests that the simplified cloak inherits some properties of the ideal cloak, but finite scatterings exist.     

Electromagnetic analysis of cylindrical cloaks of an arbitrary cross section

We extend the design of radially symmetric invisibility cloaks through transformation optics as proposed by Pendry et al. [Science 312, 1780 (2006)] to coated cylinders of an arbitrary cross section. The validity of our Fourier-based approach is confirmed by both analytical and numerical results for a cloak displaying a non-convex cross section of varying thickness. In the former case, we evaluate the Green's function of a line source in the transformed coordinates. In the latter case, we implement a full-wave finite-element model for a cylindrical antenna radiating a p-polarized electric field in the presence of a F-shaped lossy object surrounded by the cloak.