Abstract
We report an experiment in which a light pulse is effectively decelerated and trapped in a vapor of Rb atoms, stored for a controlled period of time, and then released on demand. We accomplish this “storage of light” by dynamically reducing the group velocity of the light pulse to zero, so that the coherent excitation of the light is reversibly mapped into a Zeeman (spin) coherence of the Rb vapor.
- Received 22 December 2000
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.86.783
©2001 American Physical Society
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The Physical Review Journals Celebrate The International Year of Light
The editors of the Physical Review journals revisit papers that represent important breakthroughs in the field of optics.
