Mantle cloak: Invisibility induced by a surface

The exotic wave interaction of metamaterials has been recently applied to various cloaking applications, but the metamaterial realization in practical cloaks is still far from ideal. Current fabrication techniques are inherently based on the volumetric properties of metamaterials, which require a non-negligible electrical thickness. I introduce here the idea of surface cloaking, showing that a patterned metasurface may produce similar cloaking effects in a simpler and thinner geometry. The currents induced on a passive surface are tailored to drastically suppress the visibility of a given object.