While Rotating While Cloaking

Invisible optical and thermal cloaking have been explored as the typical demonstrations of the transformation optics and thermotics theory. However, the existing cloaks are realized by only one-coordinate transformation, and the cloaking layout, i.e. the form of electromagnetic wave/heat passing around the invisible region, is single for a long time. Here, we propose a new rotated thermal cloak which can unify the conventional cloaking and rotating together, and realize the while-rotating–while-cloaking effect. The required anisotropic thermal conductivity tensor is deduced from the new geometric mapping. Though rotated, the heat flux can be tuned around the central invisible region perfectly by the proposed rotated thermal cloak. The underlying physics is explored by comprehensive analysis of the distribution of the thermal conductivity tensor, which is further compared with those of the conventional cloak and rotator. The experimental feasibility is also discussed by validating the practical while-rotating–while-cloaking effect through a proof-of-concept design. The proposed rotated thermal cloak is expected to extend the possibility of cloaking scheme, and open avenues for the multiple coordinate transformation in counterpart physical fields, like optics, electrics, acoustics, magnetics, mechanics, etc.