Slow and Fast Light

By R. W. Boyd, Daniel J. Gauthier. 2001

184 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Recent research has established that it is possible to exercise extraordinary control of the velocity of propagation of light pulses through a material system. Both extremely slow propagation (much slower than the velocity of light in vacuum) and fast propagation (exceeding the velocity of light in vacuum) have been observed. This article summarizes this recent research, placing special emphasis on the description of the underlying physical processes leading to the modification of the velocity of light. To understand these new results, it is crucial to recall the distinction between the phase velocity and the group velocity of a light field. These concepts will be defined more precisely below; for the present we note that the group velocity gives the velocity with which a pulse of light propagates through a material system. One thus speaks of “fast” or “slow” light depending on the value of the group velocity vg in comparison to the velocity of light c in vacuum.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8596653620d5a3d5b51be408429720b31e699c67

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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. R. W. Boyd
2. Alexander Gaeta
3. Zhimin Shi
4. Luc Thevenaz

In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

1. R. W. Boyd
2. Daniel J. Gauthier
3. Alexander Gaeta
4. Zhimin Shi
5. Luc Thevenaz

Citations in the corpus

• Tunable all-optical delays via Brillouin slow light in an optical fiber (2005, background): “The concept of slow light makes use of rapid spectral changes in the refractive index [ 1 ] as the group index ng is given by ng = n+ω dn dω . (1)”