In Review

(Photo: Adam Fenster)

It’s science! A portion of optics doctoral student Joseph Choi’s face is “cloaked” between a series of four standard, relatively inexpensive lenses. The first demonstration that achieves a seamless cloaking effect across a continuous range of viewing angles for visible light rays, the “Rochester Cloak” is based on a novel configuration of lenses that Choi developed this fall. The lenses focus light so that an object placed in a ring-shaped region between two of the lenses is not visible to a viewer. Unlike other cloaking technologies, the lenses do not distort the background—note that the grid lines behind Choi keep their alignment and magnification—an effect that Choi and his advisor, John Howell, professor of physics, say is a requirement for a “perfect cloak.” Photograph by Adam Fenster