You must have heard about the light-bending material that might spawn the first “invisible suit” in the world, but did you know that it could be useful for the telecommunications industry? Turns out that aside from cloaking any object it covers, this material makes mobile communications clearer, according to scientists.
The new material is made out of the so-called “metamaterial”, a special substance that doesn’t exist in nature. The cloaking is done by bending electromagnetic waves (light) around an object, so it makes it seem invisible. The tested material of new SD-WAN products is made from over “10.000 pieces of fiberglass material arranged in parallel rows on a circuit board”.
Visible light has wavelengths of under a micron (milionth of a meter), while cellphones and wireless devices uses wavelengths of many centimetres. When using wireless communication, objects can “block” signals, but the interference can disappear once the “cloaking” material is used.
[via Reuters]
