IEEE Future Directions
Related Articles
Invisibility shields
“Invisibility” has been part of popular narrative and science fiction ideas. Technology advances are providing some interpretation of “invisibility”, like fighter planes built to be invisible to radar or James Bond car surface that is actually a screen on which a computer is displaying what’s on the other side of the car so that a passer-by will not notice the car anymore.
It is a March 2018 news that the US Army has started to use Trophy, a Israeli technology creating a shield for tanks, able to block incoming rockets and other types of projectiles.
By 2040 we can expect materials that can make an object invisible. But how could it be possible? Suppose you have a materials that perfectly reflect light. Than you will not see the object (you see an object because parts of the light spectrum is reflected and part is adsorbed: it is this difference between reflection and adsorption that form the image in our eyes -and brain). If you have a material that completely reflect the light spectrum you will not see the object BUT you will not see what is behind the object, hence you would detect something “strange”! Likewise, if you have a material, like Vantablack, that completely adsorb the whole visible light spectrum you will see a black spot, not the objet but its outer shape as black contrast with the environment.
So how could a material make an object really invisible? Welcome “meta-materials“.
Researchers are studying meta-materlials with structures well below the visible light wavelength (needed to affect the light without blocking it) that are able to distort the path of light beams so that they flow around the object. Imagine a water wave moving around a rock in the sea: if the rock is small the wave goes around it and recomposes itself on the other side so that by looking at the waves arriving on the beach you would not be able to detect the rock.
This possibility has already been demonstrated in the microwave range. Our eyes are not sensitive to microwaves so it does not lead to invisibility but it is a demonstration that it is theoretically possibile to create and invisibility cloak using meta-materials with negative refraction index (see clip).
There are also other approaches to create an invisibility shield, like using nanotubes layered surfaces that can recreate mirage effects. In a mirage light is bent by different air density. It happens on very hot days, you might have experienced one on a hot Summer driving on a stretch of road and seeing what looked like water on the road. There is no water, of course, but a bending of light reflecting the sky on the tarmac which is interpreted by our brain as water.
By 2040 scientists will have developed, probably, several ways of creating various invisibility shields. Whilst military applications are clear, it remains to be seen what useful application, beyond entertainment tricks, can be found.
However, notice that the all science (and technology) of meta-materials is potentially very useful. Meta- materials can be exploited to better focus sound and ultrasound waves, hence they can have very important application in health care, both as diagnostic tools and as a cure (to destroy kidney stones and cancerous tissue, as an example), they can be used to make better sensors with lower sensitivity to noise, they can improve heat insulation or conductivity… All these properties are the ones that are most likely to lead to disruptions in several fields in the 2040 timeframe.
Broadcasting of electricity
Most of the time through the day we use some electrically powered device, a cellphone to start with, but also a growing number of sensors and actuators, like headphones. Recharging them has become part of our habit to the point that we probably won’t even notice, unless, of course, we get stuck somewhere with low battery power and no handy recharging socket!
Having the possibility to seamlessly recharge our various batteries would not just be a tremendous advantage it would also open the way to even larger use of advanced devices.
Notice that in the coming years we can easily predict an increase in power demand as we move around through the day. Augmented Reality will create significant power demand in the next decade and in the following ones. Increased computation required by ubiquitous use of artificial intelligence and continuous communications (e.g. with our digital twin) is also increasing the power demand.
Transmitting electricity wirelessly would be a very interesting proposition. Notice that we have been “transmitting” electricity in a wireless way since the invention of the radio: on one side you power an antenna with electricity and this creates an electromagnetic field that spreads out from the antenna and that can be intercepted by another antenna generating an electrical current. The problem is that the efficiency of this wireless transmission is very very low and it gets lower and lower as the distance between the transmitting and receiving antennas increases (if the distance between the two antennas is basically zero, as it happens when you recharge your toothbrush, then the efficiency is very high, in this case we call the wireless transfer “induction”, and that is what we use in modern stoves. By the way, transformers are a well know example of wireless transfer of electricity).
In the last twenty years researchers have found ways to improve this efficiency by using resonance: the wireless transmission occurs through pulses that create a resonant induction in the antenna. This increases the efficiency significantly.
However we are still far from a satisfactory solution to the wireless transfer of electricity. Companies like Powercast offer a number of products addressing specific needs but do not have a general solution.
According to the Imperial College foresight study such a general solution will become available by 2040, and indeed that will create a disruption enabling a variety of new applications and devices. It is also likely to foster the ubiquitous presence of IoT making our world more and more aware and responsive.
Fusion Power
In the 70ies, as I studied particle physics, the saying was that nuclear fusion was some 50 years away, and it always will be. That was to highlight the enormous problems laying ahead and the fact that there seemed to be no solution to them. In fact, 50 years have gone by and we are still looking at the promises of clean abundant energy at an affordable cost.
In 1994 at Princeton scientists managed to create a fusion reactor delivering 10.7MW (as the New York Times said at that time) able to power over 2,000 homes. Unfortunately that was the peak power output, and that could only be sustained for a few µs!
Europe and Asia are joining forces to create a commercial fusion reactor -ITER-, now under construction in France, expected to enter service in 2035. So it would seem that the 50 years horizon is getting … closer. May be the forecast of a 2040 availability is sound.
However, initiatives like ITER at a price tag of 12 billion $ are not available to deliver power at low cost and power production is not just about technical feasibility (and so far we have had problems in the technical feasibility of fusion power) it is about competitive pricing. A source of power that is not price competitive is not going to take off. My bet is that fusion power will remain at an experimental stage till the second part of this century.
Clearly a competitive availability of fusion power would change the rule of the game and here as well we are starting so see some promising signs. The private sector is starting to enter the game looking at smaller fusion reactor in the price range of 40 million $. MIT has announced a start up that will take a different approach to fusion power and expects to deliver by 2035, in synch with ITER at a much much lower cost.
The availability of fusion power will clearly create a disruption in the energy sector, particularly if it can be achieved using low cost small reactors that can be deployed in a diffuse way alla around the world, where energy is needed. The basic elements needed, deuterium and tritium, are widely available and the energy density is some 14,000,000 times the one of oil. With fusion there is no problem of managing dangerous waste products so it is a win on all sides (provided the cost is low enough to be competitive with oil and renewable).
