Breaking the trade-off between invisibility and sensitivity in electromagnetic sensing

Abstract

Weak electromagnetic signals demand highly sensitive sensors, yet increasing a sensor's sensitivity inevitably strengthens its interaction with the surrounding field, producing scattering that perturbs the very signals being measured. Conversely, existing cloaking strategies suppress scattering only by isolating the sensor from incident waves, thereby compromising signal reception. Resolving this long-standing trade-off between invisibility and sensitivity has remained an outstanding challenge. Here we overcome this dilemma through an integrated transformation-optical architecture that co-designs the entire sensing system, including the electrically large sensor body, the subwavelength sensing probe, and their electrical interconnection. The proposed multifunctional core-shell structure guides incident waves around the sensor body while simultaneously concentrating them into the sensing region without disturbing the external electromagnetic field. A deep-subwavelength aperture preserves electrical connectivity without degrading either cloaking or field concentration, enabling invisible sensing within a single platform. A microwave prototype based on practical optic-null-medium metamaterials experimentally demonstrates broadband scattering suppression exceeding 3 dB together with an average sixfold enhancement of the detected signal over 4.9-5.1 GHz. By simultaneously eliminating measurement-induced field perturbation and amplifying the local sensing field, our approach establishes a general framework for invisible yet highly responsive electromagnetic sensors, opening new opportunities for weak-signal detection in biomedical diagnostics, secure communications, quantum technologies, and deep-space exploration.