Chemical Cloaking

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method for chemical cloaking by coating objects with a reaction-diffusion network that actively manipulates chemical gradients to hide the object, potentially using the gradient's energy.

Contribution

It presents a novel active cloaking strategy using chemical reaction-diffusion networks to suppress gradient distortions caused by objects.

Findings

Reaction-diffusion coating redirects chemical gradients effectively.

Energy for cloaking can be sourced from existing chemical gradients.

The method enables hiding objects in chemical environments.

Abstract

Hiding an object in a chemical gradient requires to suppress the distortions it would naturally cause on it. To do so, we propose a strategy based on coating the object with a chemical reaction-diffusion network which can act as an active cloaking device. By controlling the concentration of some species in its immediate surrounding, the chemical reactions redirect the gradient as if the object was not there. We also show that a substantial fraction of the energy required to cloak can be extracted from the chemical gradient itself.