Portland, Ore. – In an experiment at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, researchers have been able to speed up or slow down light transmitted through an optical fiber with precise control. This capability could have application in telecommunications, optical switching and optical computing.
The experiment, which uses stimulated Brillouin scattering, verifies a prediction of Arnold Sommerfeld and Leon Brillouin, who early in the 20th century theorized that narrowband amplification at a sharp spectral transition could enable the speed of light to become variable.
More: EETimes
