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Researchers have unveiled a radical cloaking device that can stop a device being touched.

Dubbed the 'princess and the pea' experiment, it builds on work to develop optical, heat and sound cloaking devices.

The researchers even say their work could lead to a new generation of super comfortable thin mattresses.

Researchers say the research could lead to new ultra thin mattresses

HOW IT WORKS

In the invisibility cloak produced, a hard cylinder is inserted into the bottom layer.

Any objects to be hidden can be put into its cavity.

If a light foam or many layers of cotton would be placed above the hard cylinder, the cylinder would be more difficult to touch, but could still be felt as a form.

The metamaterial structure directs the forces of the touching finger such that the cylinder is hidden completely.

In visibility cloaks were previously developed for various senses.

Objects can be hidden from light, heat or sound.

However, hiding of an object from being touched still remained to be accomplished.

Karschule Institute of Technology scientists have now succeeded in creating a volume in which an object can be hidden from touching similar to a pea under the mattress of a princess.

'It is like in Hans-Christian Andersen's fairy tale about the princess and the pea,' said Tiemo Bückmann, KIT, the first author of the article.

'The princess feels the pea in spite of the mattresses.

'When using our new material, however, one mattress would be sufficient for the princess to sleep well,'

The material consists of precisely calculated needle-shaped elements, such that strength depends on the location in a defined way.

The invisibility cloak is based on a so-called metamaterial that consists of a polymer.

'We build the structure around the object to be hidden,' said Bückmann.

'In this structure, strength depends on the location in a defined way,'

The material consists of precisely calculated needle-shaped elements, such that strength depends on the location in a defined way.

'The precision of the components combined with the size of the complete arrangement was one of the big obstacles to the development of the mechanical invisibility cloak.'

The metamaterial is a crystalline material structured with sub-micrometer accuracy. It consists of needle-shaped cones, whose tips meet.

The size of the contact points is calculated precisely to reach the mechanical properties desired.

In this way, a structure results, through which a finger or a measurement instrument cannot feel its way.

The mechanical invisibility cloak represents pure physical fundamental research, but might open up the door to interesting applications in a few years from now, the team say.

Examples are very thin, light, and still comfortable camping mattresses or carpets hiding cables and pipelines below.