The team's invisibilitycloak exploits this effect, and relies on a specific geometry comprising two prism-shaped calcite crystals glued together, such that they leave a wedge-shaped gap beneath in which objects can be "cloaked" when illuminated with polarised light.
Several breakthroughs sent shock waves through the field of renewable energy this week as Inhabitat reported on a new type of "invisibility cloak" that could supercharge solar cells and researchers at MIT harnessed viruses to improve the efficiency of dye-solar cells by a full third.
"This to our knowledge is the first cloak that really addresses getting the transformation exactly right to get you that perfect invisibility, " Prof Smith told BBC News.
Fresh on the heels of the microwave invisibility project at the University of Texas at Austin, French researchers have found a way to make a cloak that can hide a subject from thermal imaging devices.