Cloaking device

A cloaking device is a hypothetical or fictional stealth technology that can cause objects, such as spaceships or individuals, to be partially or wholly invisible to parts of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum.

Developments in scientific research[1] show that real-world cloaking devices can obscure objects from at least one wavelength of EM emissions.

Star Trek screenwriter Paul Schneider, inspired in part by the 1958 film Run Silent, Run Deep, and in part by The Enemy Below, which had been released in 1957, imagined cloaking as a space-travel analog of a submarine submerging, and employed it in the 1966 Star Trek episode "Balance of Terror", in which he introduced the Romulan species, whose space vessels employ cloaking devices extensively.

Another Star Trek screenwriter, D.C. Fontana, coined the term "cloaking device" for the 1968 episode "The Enterprise Incident", which also featured Romulans.

Star Trek placed a limit on use of this device: a space vessel cannot fire weapons, employ defensive shields, or operate transporters while cloaked;[4] thus it must "decloak" to fire—essentially like a submarine needing to "surface" in order to launch torpedoes.

[5] Writers and game designers have since incorporated cloaking devices into many other science-fiction narratives, including Doctor Who, Star Wars, and Stargate.

This is due to the random scattering of light, such as that which occurs in clouds, fog, milk, frosted glass, etc., combined with the properties of the metamaterial coating.

The drawback to this system is that, when the cloaked wearer moves, a visible distortion is often generated as the 'fabric' catches up with the object's motion.

The device consists of a series of four lenses which direct light rays around objects which would otherwise occlude the optical pathway.