LIGHT travelling through a solid has been slowed to below the speed of sound
by American scientists, paving the way for optical computer processors.
Researchers have already slowed light to a virtual crawl in both hot gases
and ultracold atoms by illuminating them with intense light to change their
optical properties. Now a team led by Alexey Turukhin of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology has applied the same techniques to a crystal of yttrium
silicate doped with small amounts of the rare earth praseodymium. This slowed
light waves to speeds as low as 45 metres per second, Turukhin told the…
