Sci-Fi Cloaking Technology Takes a Step Closer to Reality With Synthetic Skin Like an Octopus

An octopus’s adaptive camouflage has long inspired materials scientists looking to come up with new cloaking technologies. Now researchers have created a synthetic "skin" that independently shifts its surface patterns and colors like these intelligent invertebrates.

The ability to alter an object’s appearance on demand has a host of applications, from allowing machines to dynamically blend into their surroundings to creating adaptive displays and artwork. Octopuses are an obvious source of inspiration thanks to their unique ability to change the color and physical structure of their skin in just seconds.

So far, however, materials scientists have struggled to replicate this dual control. Materials that change color typically use nanostructures to reflect light in specific ways. But changing a surface’s shape interferes with these interactions, making it challenging to tune both properties simultaneously.

Now, in a paper published in Nature, Stanford University researchers cracked the problem by creating a synthetic skin made of two independently controlled polymer layers: One changes color and the other shape.

“For the first time, we can mimic key aspects of octopus, cuttlefish, and squid camouflage in different environments: namely, controlling complex, natural-looking textures and at the same time, changing independent patterns of color,” Siddharth Doshi, first author of the paper, told The Financial Times.

The new camouflage system took direct inspiration from cephalopods, which use tiny muscle-controlled structures called papillae to reshape their skin’s surface while separate pigment cells alter color.

To recreate these abilities, the researchers turned to a polymer called PEDOT:PSS, which swells when it absorbs water. The team used electron-beam lithography—a technology typically used to etch patterns into computer chips—to control how much different areas of the polymer swell when exposed to liquid.

The team covered one layer of the polymer in a single layer of gold to create textures that switch between a shiny and matte appearance. They then sandwiched another layer of the polymer between two layers of gold, creating an optical cavity that could be used to generate a wide variety of colors as the distance between the gold sheets changes.