SLOW LIGHT Dynamic photon storage

L ight has been the workhorse of modern telecommunications since the invention of fi bre optics. Th e ever-increasing demand to be able to transmit information not only over the large distances between continents but increasingly over the much smaller distances such as the interconnects between high-speed microchips, has led to a variety of approaches to manipulating light. Despite this, no one has yet developed an eff ective means of storing a train of optical pulses without fi rst converting them into electronic signals and then back again. Th is lack of so-called optical buff er presents a serious limitation for the development of optical transmission and processing systems. Bu