Remember the invisibility cloak worn by Harry Potter? Despite never having attended wizardry courses at Hogwarts, Chinese scientist Liu Ruopeng is attempting to turn J. K. Rowling's fantasy into reality by producing a special material that bends light waves and makes objects and people invisible.

According to Liu, a 26-year old leading researcher on the pioneering invisibility program, the cloak he is working on is about the size of a bath towel and is composed of thousands of glass-like fibers that deflect light from its surface. Whatever is under the cloak will appear transparent.

There is nothing theoretically impossible about an invisibility cloak as long as the material it is made of has the ability to deflect light rays, an optical researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences told Beijing News. Scientists around the world are racing to be first to perfect the technology, which has obvious military applications.

A Ph.D. student at Duke University in America, Liu carried out his research with the help of his US classmates and Chinese colleagues from Southeast University. He is one of China's post-80s generation of young scientists and has had his work published in Science, one of the world's best known popular science magazines.

(China.org.cn by Wu Jin April 7, 2009)