If materials are subject to the laws of physics…

[exatron]

Does that mean metamaterials are subject to the laws of metaphysics?

Scientists in Germany have managed to create material with a negative refractive index. The new material may be useful for creating an invisibility cloak.

Comments

[invisiblewolf.livejournal.com]

Yup, I've seen a whole bunch of news articles about it. I have a book that should be arriving any day now which goes into the topic of metamaterials.

-Spiritwolf.

[zookee.livejournal.com]

Hunh. I always thought that if a material of refractive index X could bend light through an angle of Y degrees, then a material of refractive index -X would appropriately bend the light through an angle of -Y degrees. How wrong I was.

[exatron.livejournal.com]

Optics is an area of physics that can give me trouble, but I did some research and your description is what this metamaterial is supposedly doing. Bending light the "wrong" way has some weird applications, like in superlenses and the cloaking device I mentioned.

[nekura-ca.livejournal.com]

Refractive index indicates more how the light bends then exactly how much it bends, it all depends on the angle of the incoming light as well. A refractive index equal to one indicates that there is no bending, higher then one means that the bends away from the normal (which can lead to total reflexion), and less then one bends it towards the normal. Negative indexes would bend it back beyond the normal. Some real interesting stuff should happen when the index exceeds -1.

You are kind of correct though, for index X, if the resultant angle is Y from the norm, index -X would result in an angle that is Y from the norm, on the other side, so effectively -Y. If that makes sense. ^_^