Reporting in the journal Nature Photonics, the Israeli scientists say they have found a way to send images of light around corners by shining light from a normal lamp through a highly scattering plastic film.
![Weizmann Institute scientists send images of light around corners](http://israel21c.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/light-bends.jpg)
Weizmann Institute scientists send images of light around corners. (Image by Shutterstock.com)
The scientists used spatial light modulators (SLMs) to “under” the scattering that makes objects opaque or non-reflecting.
Using a normal lamp, the team used a computer to tune the SLM unit they could see a clear image of the lamp through the film.
“What we have shown is that you don’t need lasers – everybody else was doing this with lasers, and we showed you can do it with incoherent light from a lamp or the Sun – natural light,” senior author of the study Prof. Yaron Silberberg told BBC News.
The team showed the technique works when the light from an object bounces off a piece of paper.
“You can take a piece of wall and effectively turn it into a mirror, and this is the part that makes everybody raise an eyebrow,” Silberberg told BBC.
Silberberg said the technique will be used in biological and medical studies.