By Peter Weiss
Last year, for the first time, scientists slowed light pulses to a halt and briefly stored them in a gas before permitting them to reemerge at normal speed (SN: 1/27/01, p. 52: Light Stands Still in Atom Clouds). Now, a team of researchers in the United States and Korea has achieved the same result with light in a solid.
Many scientists envision applying this remarkable new means of controlling nature to quantum computers and other future devices whose operation will be based on quantum mechanics (SN: 12/8/01, p. 364: Gadgets from the Quantum Spookhouse).