A new flexible material developed by engineers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) is claimed to be able to tune out various portions of the electromagnetic spectrum while allowing others to pass through, such as being opaque to infra-red but transparent to visible light, for example. This material has the potential to vastly improve the efficiencies of solar cells, or create window coatings that not only let in visible light and keep out heat, but also stop electronic eavesdropping by blocking electromagnetic signals.
Though still very much at the working prototype stage, the researchers intend to further their research by analyzing the effects of different materials, physical arrangements, and semiconductor properties in an attempt to create materials that absorb light at different wavelengths for use in a variety of applications.
The results of this research were recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. more