Light slowed to a crawl in liquid crystal matrix
Tuesday, August 13, 2013 - 20:00
in Physics & Chemistry
Light traveling in a vacuum is the Universe's ultimate speed demon, racing along at approximately 300,000 kilometers/second. Now scientists have found an effective new way to put a speed bump in light's path. Researchers have embedded dye molecules in a liquid crystal matrix to throttle the group velocity of light back to less than one billionth of its top speed.