Invisibility cloak' antennas could shrink cellphones

Harnessing the materials used to make real-life invisibility cloaks could shrink cellphone antennas, leading to smaller gadgets.

Metamaterials – materials that possess properties which don't exist in nature – can manipulate light or other electromagnetic waves with such dexterity that they can steer rays around objects as if they weren't there at all. But most metamaterials can only pull such stunts on waves of a specific frequency – for example a particular colour of light.

An international team of physicists has now created metamaterials that can be tuned to a range of different frequencies as required. A cellphone antenna fashioned from the new material could be tuned to work very efficiently across a small frequency range, but retuned to a different band for roaming.