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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

What are the limits to the time delay achievable using "slow-light" methods?

Robert W. Boyd, Nick N. Lepeshkin, Aaron Schweinsberg, Petros Zerom, George M. Gehring, Giovanni Piredda, Zhimin Shi, Heedeuk Shin, Q‐Han Park

Published Aug 18, 2005• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Practical applications of slow light methods require that one be able to controllably delay a pulse of light by many pulse lengths. In this contribution we analyze the possible limitations to the maximum achievable time delay and suggest methods for overcoming these limits.
DOI
10.1117/12.617736

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We consider the question of whether there are any fundamental limits to the maximum time delay that can be achieved for a pulse propagating through a slow-light medium. We include in our analysis what we consider to be the dominant competing effects, and we show that in principle they do not lead to a limitation on the maximum achievable time delay. From this result we conclude that, through optimization, one should be able to delay a pulse by very many pulse lengths; the ability to do so can have important implications for the use of slow-light methods for applications in photonics.
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