Berkeley researchers have taken a major step towards a true invisibility device with the creation of a carpet cloak from nanostructured silicon that conceals the presence of objects placed under it from optical detection. This new cloak suggests that true invisibility materials are within reach.

Berkeley Lab researchers at The Molecular Foundry were part of an international team that created a silicon photonic crystal-based device which behaves like a superlens and provides the first experimental demonstration of optical antimatter.

Berkeley Lab researchers have taken a major step forward in the technology of spintronics by creating the “persistent spin helix,” which allows them to control the spin states of highly mobile electrons at different locations in a semiconductor and turn the collective state on and off at will. The discovery represents a new conservation law, an important advance in fundamental physics.