Light Waves Brought to a Stop in a Crystal Promises New Ways to Control Photons
Finding new ways to slow fleeting waves of light or even stop them in their tracks could lead to more advanced photonic devices, such as lasers, LED displays, fiber-optics, and sensors.
In a cunning trap made from a silicon crystal tweaked to behave as if it's deformed, scientists have found a flexible new way to make light waves stand absolutely still.
Light can be brought to a halt in a few different ways, such as by cooling clouds of atoms or even braiding light waves together. This new method, from AMOLF and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, has advantages that could bring new technological applications to reality.
"This principle offers a new approach to slow down light fields and thereby enhance their strength," says physicist Ewold Verhagen of AMOLF. "Realizing this on a chip is particularly important for many applications."
The team's work was based on manipulating electrons using two-dimensional materials such as graphene. In a conducting material, electrons can move freely, zooming along like a tiny highway. However, applying a magnetic field can restrict movement of the electrons to certain energies, known as Landau levels.
