The scientists at the University of California, Berkeley are extremely close to a major scientific break-through, as they have been working for quite some time on developing a material that could make people and objects invisible.

The research was focused on finding the compounds to put together a material that would redirect the light around the covered objects, making them invisible. At first, they were only able to cover thin two-dimensional objects so the progress’ announcement was received with great enthusiasm, presenting great potential for numerous activities, such as military applications.

The mechanics behind the work involve the careful study of how light enables us to view objects, which scatter the rays, sending some of them back to our eyes and offering us the details of what stands before our eyes. The materials used in the study are called metamaterials, and their properties help deflect the light around objects, in a way that does not create shadows or reflections. In order to “bring light” on the issue, the scientists offered the example of a river flowing around a rock, completely covering it with the water flow.

The metamaterials are composed of metal and a series of circuit board materials such as Teflon, fiber composite and ceramic.

The study, offering at this point two possible directions for the negative refraction theory, which consists in bending the light backward, at infrared and visible wavelengths, both led by Mr. Xiang Zhang, will be detailed later this week in the journals Science and Nature. The study presented in the journal Science uses an array of upright wires, which are used for charging the electric fields of passing light waves. The second solution, detailed in the journal Nature, involves a fishnet structure of 21 layers, packed with a metal and magnesium fluoride, which is able to refract infrared light. The scientists believe that by minimizing the structure’s size, they should be able to successfully bend visible light.

The nanocircuits allow the light to break through the material’s layers and expand less energy while moving through them.

The fishnet is composed of many silver nanowires, each being about 10,000 times thinner than human hair and the researchers involved in the study pointed out that "Developing a way to manufacture these materials on a large scale will also be a challenge."

There is still a long way to go before revealing any sort of device that might resemble Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak, as at this point the metamaterials developed by the scientists are mostly made out of metal and are extremely fragile.

Dr. Xiang Zhang is still uncertain which theory can provide the wanted results, saying that: “There are many roads to Rome. At this point, honestly speaking, we don’t know which road will be the best.”

Its main funders are the U.S. Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation's Nano-Scale Science and Engineering Center. There is no doubt that one of the main uses of the discovery would be related to the military but there are also many other directions, such as studying the wild.