New technology that could someday make Harry Potter's invisibility cloak a reality, may have more immediate, and important applications: the ability to see and communicate better.

While any type of cloaking device is likely at least 10 years away, being able to control how light bends is a major step in other emerging technologies.

The military application of such a device might seem obvious, but the immediate medical and communication applications could be just as exciting.

Researcher and co-author of a new study on metamaterial, Guy Bartal, of the University of California Berkeley, believes the application in imaging and telecommunications could be significant.

"Shorter-term applications of the things we have demonstrated, I would say...we can use it for very high resolution, to image tiny objects," Bartal said. "For example, living cells in their natural environment."

Currently there are limits to how tiny an object can be imaged, "Even if you take a very small object, and you magnify by say 100,000, you will see a magnified image, but you won't see the fine detail, you will get a blurred image."

Bartal adds that using metamaterial you will be able to see those smaller objects.

Prof. George Eleftheriades is a metamaterials researcher and Canada Research Chair in the University of Toronto's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.

He believes that in addition to their use in medical imaging, metamaterials will also be instrumental in improving wireless technology.

What is metamaterial?

University of California Berkeley researcher Dr. Shuang Zhang, is the co-author of one of two studies recently published on metamaterial.

He describes metamaterial as "a three dimensional array of electronic elements such as capacitors and inductors, the common elements you will find in your radio, or televison, but with a nanometer scale so that it can interact with light."

These engineered materials, which do not exist in nature, are often built with simple metals like silver or gold.

They are then engineered to interact with electromagnetic waves, like light and radio waves, in order to bend or reverse those waves.

Seeing small things

Objects that are much smaller than the wavelength of light, about one micrometer, cannot be seen by today's optical microscopes, according to Zhang.

But, metamaterials may solve that problem.

"The metamaterials achieved by our group have the potential to beat this limit and to image very small objects, such as living cells, in their natural environment. This would be of practical importance for medical science," he said.

Eleftheriades adds that while low cost, high resolution medical imaging is an area where metamaterials can be applied, "we are still learning how to make 3-dimensional metamaterial lenses and how to reduce the effect of losses on imaging resolution."

The effect that metamaterials can have on light could also lead to their use for confining it into very fine beams to create "optical circuits," a possible future alternative to the electric circuit.

Other technological applications

Metamaterials are built to specific sizes depending on the frequency of the waves they are intended to interact with.

They can, therefore, also be designed to work with radio waves, radar and telecommunications signals.

According to Eleftheriades, the development of metamaterials for use in next generation wireless systems is happening quickly.

"Metamaterials enable for example the development of small multi-antenna terminals that are needed in many of these wireless platforms," he said. "Moreover, metamaterials are very well suited for creating devices that operate at multiple bands which is another immediate requirement in emerging wireless systems."

So while the idea of using metamaterials to hide things may be a decade away, using them to see small objects and facilitate communication, may be much closer.