![]() ![]() Photonic crystals are materials perforated with billions of tiny holes through which light refracts, according to Reader's Digest. But it's the second method that allowed the researchers to make their breakthrough. When the laser is abruptly switched off, a slow pulse of light is imprinted onto the atoms, essentially bringing the light to a halt by absorbing it the imprinted shape can then be converted back into a photon. ![]() The first involves aiming a laser into a cloud of ultracold sodium atoms, the researchers wrote in their paper. Existing research shows us that light can be slowed to an infinitesimal fraction of its vacuum speed in two ways, according to the new paper: trapping it inside either ultracold atom clouds or inside waveguides made with photonic crystals. Slow-light technologies could help improve our telecommunications systems, as well as our quantum computers. ![]()
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