Invisibility has always been an intriguing and challenging optical phenomenon. Since the proposal of transformation optics theory, the enthusiasm continues to be devoted to various strategies for achieving invisibility. Among them, the experimental exploration of metamaterials with complex anisotropic electromagnetic responses has attracted the most attention. However, their realization in the optical wavelength range has been a hindrance to the development of invisibility.

Researchers at the University of Glasgow and Masaryk University propose the shifty invisibility cloaks, transformation optical devices that appear to shift an interior region of space to the outside. The shifty cloaks can be built of homogeneous blocks of material and, in the simplest case, there are only two different types of blocks of material included in the device. Furthermore, shifty cloaks can be applied to make other transformation optical devices, such as perfect invisibility cloaks, Janus devices, or optical wormholes. As a demonstration of the idea, they built a simple paraxial shifty cloak experimentally with only wedge prisms. Anticipation mounts for the eventual development of omnidirectional shifty cloaks, promising further advancements in invisibility technology.

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