Scientists said yesterday that they had achieved a long-sought goal of slowing waves of light to a relatively leisurely pace and using those harnessed pulses to store an image. Physicists said the new approach to taming light could hasten the arrival of a futuristic era in which computers and other devices will process information on optical beams instead of with electricity, which for all its spark is still cumbersome compared with light.
Physicists say they have brought light to a complete halt for a fraction of a second and then sent it on its way. Controlling the movement of light particles - so-called photons - to store and process data could lead to the development of quantum computers.
Light can be turned into a glowing stream of liquid that splits into droplets and splatters off surfaces just like water. The researchers who've worked out how to do this say "liquid light" would be the ideal lifeblood for optical computing, where chips send light around optical "circuits" to process data.
Separate teams of physicists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Harvard University have managed to trap light and release it again, a feat that could aid the development of high-speed quantum computers and a quantum Internet.