Dr Michelle Dickinson: nanotechnologist on scientists developing real-life invisibility cloaks

Imagine wearing clothes that could make you blend seamlessly into your surroundings, just like a chameleon or an octopus. New research published in the journal Science Advances just turned this concept from science fiction to science fact. 

The new material is able to adapt its appearance to its environment without the need for clunky electronics or high-tech devices using self-adaptive photochromism (SAP). 

The SAP material is made of special organic dyes and molecules called donor-acceptor Stenhouse adducts (DASAs). 

When exposed to light, the molecules in SAP rearrange their structure. 

This process changes how the material absorbs and reflects light, resulting in a colour shift that matches the surroundings. 

It’s a bit like a synthetic version of a chameleon’s skin, but instead of specialized colour-changing cells, SAP relies on a chemical reaction triggered by light. 

In the study, the researchers tested this material in several scenarios to showcase its abilities: 

Colour Matching in Boxes: A translucent container coated with SAP was placed in boxes of different colours - red, green, yellow, and black. In each case, the material adjusted its hue to match the box within seconds. 

Blending with Nature: The material was placed near clusters of colourful plants. Whether surrounded by red flowers, green leaves, or yellow blooms, it seamlessly melted into its environment in under a minute. 

Current camouflage systems rely on external power sources and complicated electronics, however these new SAP materials only need light to activate the camouflage effect. 

As they are much cheaper than traditional systems and can be sprayed onto surfaces as a coating, the potential uses for this technology are huge and we could all be walking around with our own invisibility cloak very soon. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talk SEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
And with a fascinating science study of the week, Doctor Michelde,
can Sink.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Morner, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
It will see the idea of heaving in visibility cloak.
It sounds so cool, but my mind also goes to
dark places. It sounds slightly terrifying as well.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Okay, let's go back to Harry Potter.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Let's just okay, all right, let's just sit in Harry
Potter world and we'll go from there. How they've done this.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
This is so clever. This is probably and I know
I do a study every week, but as an engineer,
I'm nerding out on how clever this is. So let's
talk about invisibility cloaks. They have existed before, and what
usually you have is a really complex setup where you've
got a camera that recognizes what the background is and
then a whole bunch of electronics that tries to match
to what it's seeing on the camera. And it's clunky,

(00:57):
it needs to be plugged in, and they typically would
use it for things like military vehicles, planes trying to
and invisibility. We can talk about in you know, we
would think about it in the visitall waveloads, what can
we see? But also you might want to not be
detected in radar or something else, so invisibily about those things.
Today's study is about visible light like things that we see.
And instead of having a camera to and all the electronics,

(01:19):
you don't have to plug this in. This is a
special type of chemical reaction. So the technology is called
self adaptive photochromism, and basically it's made up. They've made
a new material of organic dyes and molecules that are
called dasa's donor Acceptes Steinhaus adducts. Don't worry about the name. Basically,
these clever molecules, when they're exposed to light, rearrange their

(01:42):
structure to change how the material absorbs and reflects light
based on what it is surrounded by. So they did this,
it's so clever. They did the few tests where there's
some videos if you want to go read this. It's
in their journal Science Advances, and there are movies and
it's quite fun. It's quite a meaty. But don't worry.
Just scroll over all the technical words and go watch

(02:03):
the movies in it. They went they took a color
matching box experiment. They took a see through a container
and they spray coated it with this special type of
material with these molecules in it, and then they just
put them in boxes that had different colors or a
red one or yellow one and a green one and
a black one, and within seconds the material had matched

(02:24):
its color. So how is it doing that without a camera.
What it's doing is it's taking the light that is
reflected from its near environment. So you know, if you
put a buttercup, or with buttercups in New Zealand, that's
a very British thing to say. Yeah, okay. If you
take a butter cup and put it under your chin,
as a kid used to go, oh do you like
butter and it would always glow yellow, right, because what
it's doing is reflecting the yellow light onto your chin.

(02:47):
Same theory happens. So they're putting this material near They
did it with flowers too, near a flower, and so
the yellow of the flower would reflect back and it goes, oh,
that's yellow, and it uses that yellow light that's being
reflected back to change its color to match to be
the same. So it doesn't need to see anything. It's
just matching what it is being reflected onto it. So

(03:09):
no cameras, no electronics, literally could spray it anyway. You
don't need to plug it in. And it's actually really clever.
So they've done it on flowers where it was able
to match the red flower, the green leaves, and the
yellow bloom. They've done it in different matching boxes, and
it's so clever, and it's reversible and it can change
into different colors and you just go this, this is

(03:31):
a game change, and.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
It can pick up every color that is nourisher with
any color.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
So they've only tested it on certain visible wavelengths of light,
but I haven't seen them test it on anything that
I would assume things like purple would get more challenging.
But they've definitely done red, yellow, green, black, Yeah, red,
yellowcal freen and black that I saw in the study.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, it's incredible. So does it reflect as you say,
if there was a pattern, would it reflect the pattern
or would it take be a dominant color or anything
like that.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
So in the flower test, it literally reflected the colors
of the flower. So where it was green, it did
the green, Where yellow in the flower or red in
the flower, it did that, but it's all about the
light that's reflecting off So as long as the light
is reflecting off it and it can pick it up,
then it changes exactly and it happens within like two seconds.
So if you've ever seen an octopus, steward or a
chameleon do it, they do it through special cells that

(04:22):
do exactly the same thing. So what this study has
done is gone, how do those sales work. Let's make
artificial molecules do the same thing as these cells. We're
just going to copy what a chameleon does and do
it without any batteries, without any cameras. Like this is
insane what they've done. It's a beautiful study science advances.
It's quite technical, but it does have pictures which I like,

(04:43):
So go have a look.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Pictures and movies. Thank you so much, Michelle, appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks. It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.