Slowing Light to Speed up Data
College researchers are leading a multi-university team of scientists to tackle some of the biggest challenges in all-optical processing. The cutting-edge work—which involves bringing light to a near halt—may offer ways to dramatically improve the telecommunications industry's ability to shuttle large amounts of data from place to place at the speed of light.
Researchers have slowed light before, but the recent work by principal investigator Robert Boyd, professor of optics and physics, using lasers and a piece of ruby, did so with a simple system that is, in the words of Boyd, "ridiculously easy to implement." It uses a laser to "punch a hole" in the absorption spectrum of a common ruby at room temperature, and a second laser shines through that hole at just 127 miles per hour—5.3 million times slower than light's normal speed of 186,000 miles per second.
Researchers in the consortium will be focusing on developing slow light for the telecom industry, as well as developing all-optical switches—routing devices that can control light with light.
