A demonstration of optical camouflage technology at Tokyo University, conducted by Faculty of Engineering professor Susumu Tachi, in Tokyo in this Febuary 5, 2003 file photo.

Hands up if you haven't dreamt of becoming invisible at times?Researchers have too and are working on proving it's not so impossible.

Alongside some practical applications, such as self-cleaning windows, salads that contain vaccine, and tiny laptop chargers, researchers are working with nanotechnology to make invisibility, or at least a version of it, reality.

Broadly defined as the manipulation of matter on such a small scale it cannot be seen by the human eye, nanotechnology is finally opening the door to previously unexplored opportunities for technology and business.

The potential application of nanotech-enabled tiny machines has companies like Google exploring future uses especially in medicine while the University of Pennsylvania in the United States has opened a A$92 million ($102 million) nanotechnology research hub in the centre of Philadelphia.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could be like Harry Potter?" Mark Allen, scientific director of the University's Krishna P. Singh Centre for Nanotechnology, told Fairfax Media during a tour of the facility.

"Invisibility is very hard to do but it is possible using metamaterials to bend light at certain angles. It is far from Harry Potter's cloak but you can imagine applications for that."

Allen is referring to work by University of Pennsylvania colleague Nader Engheta that demonstrates an early-stage example of nanotechnology a "cloaking device" that can bend light waves around an object rendering it effectively invisible.

"There is also a professor working on nanostructures that are self-cleaning," he said. "Imagine if you didn't need to clean your windows or any surfaces in the home."

Another example of how nanotechnology may play a role in the not-so-distant future is tracking food quality in restaurants.

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Nanotechnology's next trick could be a real invisibility cloak