Engineers overcome a hurdle in growing a revolutionary optical metamaterial

Engineers have now produced an elusive diamond crystal structure that could revolutionize photonics. This has put them on the path to achieving a material that is the ‘holy grail of directed particle self-assembly.’ Such materials could be used to make lenses, cameras and microscopes with better performance, or possibly even ‘invisibility cloaks,’ solid objects that would redirect all light rays around a central compartment, rendering objects there invisible.

(via WSJ)