This Camouflage Coating Hides Submarines From Sonar

Imagine a material that wicks sound across its surface like water droplets sliding over a windowpane. For submarines, such a coating would mean an entirely new way to slip past sonar without detection as sound waves pass harmlessly around the vessel.

Physicist Baile Zhang and his colleagues at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore think they may have found a way to design such a coating, which could work for any 3D shape—sharp corners included.

In a new research paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, he describes why this theoretical material could work and what you'd need to make it.

Read more