An electromagnetic black hole — which sucks in the light surrounding it — has been built at Southeast University in Nanjing, China for the first time. The device works like cosmological black holes in that it has gravity which is intense enough to bend the surrounding space-time, causing any matter in the neighborhood to spiral inward and create the hole itself. The earth-built ‘black hole’ for microwave frequencies is constructed of 60 annular strips of meta-materials (yes, that’s the stuff of invisibility cloaks). Each strip is an intricately etched circuit board which seamlessly and smoothly connects to the strips next to it, creating both a shell and absorber section to the device. When an electromagnetic wave hits the device, it is trapped and guided through the shell region toward the core, where it is absorbed. The device, which was created by Tie Jun Cui and Qiang Cheng, converts that absorbed light into heat, meaning that future possible applications could include new ways of harvesting solar energy. Hit the read link for a fuller description of this truly bad dude.
Filed under: Science
First electromagnetic ‘black hole’ built on earth, nobody raps about it originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Oct 2009 10:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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