Cloak of Invisibility is commonly found in myriad of various myths and fiction novels. But the recent developments have indicated that the fiction is very close to coming to life.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkley, have successfully created artificial materials called ‘metamaterials’ that work with the full spectrum of light visible to the human eye, U.S. news site, MSNBC, reported Wednesday.

Metamaterial cloaks developed previously were successfully only partially as it could hide objects from limited parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. But this newly developed cloak was able to cloak objects.

Researchers constructed and tested the cloak and were able to successfully disguise an extremely small object (0.000061cm X 0.000012cm) ­ about the size of a human red blood cell and 100 times thinner than the human hair.

This cloak is made of silicon nitride layered on top of silicon oxide with minute pores. Then the silicon nitride is etched with a special pattern of holes ­ and these holes alter the speed at which light travels through the layer that contains them, allowing the engineers to manipulate our perception.

There are, however, visible limitations for widespread or any practical use. The tiny cloak contains 7,000 holes ­ and any cloak larger would require immense amount of time. While it may still be far away from practical applications, the discovery is nevertheless a giant leap for our pursuit for invisibility.

The research has been carried in the latest issue of Nano Letters.