Improbable Research

The Nano-Lectures: Lene Hau

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	Lene Hau, Professor of Applied Physics and Professor of Physics at Harvard University; the first human being who slowed light to a crawl — and then slowed it to a dead stop. Photo: John Bradley.

TOPIC: SLOW LIGHT

Complete technical description in TWENTY-FOUR (24) SECONDS: Secret recipe for beating light on your bike: Atom refrigerator, candlestick, atomic beam source, Zeeman slower, resonant radiation pressure force, optical molasses, polarization gradient cooling, 4D magnet, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, nano-Kelvin, field-effect transistor, avalanche breakdown, superfluid Bose Einstein condensate, ultra-high vacuum, laser illumination, polarization control, light pulse injection, entangled atoms, quantum interference, superposition dark state, light pulse compression, superfluid shock waves. Voila: SLOW PHOTONS!

Clear summary that anyone can understand, in SEVEN (7) WORDS: Stopped Light: warm-up exercise. Real goal: Time-stop.

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