Harry Potter's invisibility cloak could be a reality in two years

London, Aug 21 (ANI): A University of St Andrews scientist has made fresh advancement in bringing Harry Potter's invisibility cloak closer to reality.

Professor Ulf Leonhardt, who has won funding to develop a real version of the magical device, describes his work as the "ultimate optical illusion'.

He is planning to use refractive metals to make light waves flow around an object, as happens in a mirage, when blue light from the sky is bent by heated air to create the impression of a blue pond in the desert.

Pushing the laws of refraction and reflection to the limit, he plans an extreme version of the affect that appears while watching a fish in a glass tank.

The deflection of light as it moves from the air to the glass to the water makes the fish seem bigger and in a different part of the tank that in reality.

"Imagine a transparent material that guides light around an object without distorting the light - the object would disappear from view," the Telegraph quoted Leonhardt as saying.

"I will most certainly find easier ways of cloaking, but it remains to be seen how practical they are.

"The important thing is to understand the foundations and come up with something new or take an existing idea to extremes; using technology and ideas to make things happen - technology we cannot imagine would ever exist," he added.

The physicist has won funding from the Royal Society's Theo Murphy Blue Skies award worth 100,000 pounds, so he will be able to pursue full time his invisible project for the next two years. (ANI)