Canadian camouflage company Hyperstealth Biotechnology has patented the technology behind a material that bends light to make people and objects near invisible to the naked eye.
The material, called Quantum Stealth, is currently still in the prototyping stage, but was developed by the company's CEO Guy Cramer primarily for military purposes, to conceal agents and equipment such as tanks and jets in the field.
As well as making objects close to invisible to the naked eye, the material also conceals them from infrared and ultraviolet imagers.
Unlike traditional camouflage materials, which are limited to specific conditions such as forests or deserts, according to Cramer this "invisibility cloak" works in any environment or season, at any time of day.
This is made possible through something called a lenticular lens ? a corrugated sheet in which each ridge is made up of a convex ? or outward-curving ? lens.
These are most commonly found in 3D bookmarks or collectable football cards but in this case, they are left clear rather than being printed on.
When multiple of these lenticular sheets with different lens distributions are layered in just the right way, they are able to refract light at a myriad different angles to create "dead spots".
Light is no longer able to pass through these points, hiding the subject behind them from view while the background remains unchanged.
"It bends light like a glass of water does when a spoon or straw inside it looks b...