Harry Potter first wore his invisibility cloak around the late 90s. Many might have dreamed of owning something similar, and now the cloak of invisibility was no longer just for wizards.

The Canadian company Hyperstealth, which is engaged in camouflage design, has developed the Quantum Stealth – a kind of true invisibility cloak, which should be able to hide tanks and even entire military forces.

The material must be as thin as paper, write among other things Telegraph (for the customer), and consists of a lens that bends light around the object, making it appear to disappear. Only the background is visible. The material must also be able to bend ultraviolet and infrared rays.

A clip in the video made by the Canadian company shows a man walking behind a kind of screen mounted in front of a wall. When he’s behind the scenes, we barely notice anything moving, but instead we only see the wall in the background. Another clip shows a small plate in front of what looks like a miniature lawn. As the camera moves across the plate, you see three small cars standing in the yard.

It sounds pretty awesome, but it should still be relatively uncomplicated, and affordable too.

IFL Science explains that all materials have a refractive index, which says something about a material’s ability to conduct light. For example, you can put a spoon in a glass of water and notice that it looks bent when you look into the glass. Similarly, a swimming pool looks shallower than it actually is, because when light passes through two materials, its angle changes depending on the index of refraction. Knowledge of this in turn can allow you to build material that hides something very near or very far from it.

According to the website, it should work the same way when you create an image that looks like 3D when you view it from the right angle.

Therefore, the material would not be able to provide a complete invisibility cloak. The object to be hidden will not be visible, and the color will only be affected by the background, not by the object being hidden. However, the background will be distorted so you will see it something there.