In the saga of the Nibelungs, Siegfried managed to take possession of the Nibelung treasure with the cloaking cap of the dwarf Alberich. In a few years’ time, a similar technology could also cause a military sensation.
Concealing one’s own strength has always played an important, often decisive role in warfare. The Nibelung saga, in which Siegfried uses Alberich’s cloak of invisibility to gain possession of the Nibelung treasure, shows just how strong the desire to remain unseen is, and cloaks of invisibility and other concealment methods often play important roles in Hollywood films too. In reality, soldiers, installations and weapons systems have so far had to be elaborately concealed from the eyes and radars of the enemy using camouflage colors, clothing and nets or special stealth constructions, but in the future a new technology could make invisibility much easier and more effective.
A material called “Quantum Stealth” is supposed to make the impossible possible. This is a plastic developed by the Canadian company HyperStealth Biotechnology that works without cameras, sensors or energy sources and refracts light in such a way that people and objects behind it disappear for onlookers. And not just visually, but, as videos published on the website www.hyperstealth.net show, also in the ultraviolet, thermal infrared and short-wave infrared spectrum. This is made possible by the latest advances in nanomanufacturing technology, which allow the cardboard-thick material to be coated with around 2,000 double-convex, tiny lenses per square centimeter. The company from Maple Ridge (British Columbia) under its CEO Guy Cramer initially wants to offer the technology, also known as the “Broadband Invisibility Cloak”, for military purposes when it is ready for the market – unsurprisingly. However, there still seems to be a long way to go (in terms of development) until then: At present, objects still have to maintain considerable distances from the material in order to be recognizable as anything other than gradual shadows or blurs. This distance is at least 40 centimetres for people, but up to 3.5 meters for larger objects such as battle tanks, which makes effective use difficult or even impossible.
In the future, these values should therefore be significantly reduced. In the long term, the development of camouflage suits and even camouflage shields using the material is also conceivable and, in a further development phase, entire infrastructure facilities such as airfields could even disappear under the film, which would amount to nothing less than a revolution in many military processes and procedures. Rumors that the US military is already testing prototypes of the new technology have not yet been confirmed by HyperStealth.
