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Physics World

Slow light brings faster communications

Daniel J. Gauthier

Published Dec 1, 2005• 48 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In the last 10 years, technology that can encode information onto pulses of light and then send it around the globe through ultra-thin glass fibres has revolutionized the way we communicate. With the pulses travelling at speeds of up to 200 000kms-1, and suffering very little attenuation, someone in New York can have a telephone conversation with someone in Bangalore almost in real time, even though they are some 13 300 km apart. This is an excellent example of technology bringing people closer together and leading to a truly global economy.

DOI
10.1088/2058-7058/18/12/31

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In the last 10 years, technology that can encode information onto pulses of light and then send it around the globe through ultra-thin glass fibres has revolutionized the way we communicate. With the pulses travelling at speeds of up to 200 000kms-1, and suffering very little attenuation, someone in New York can have a telephone conversation with someone in Bangalore almost in real time, even though they are some 13 300 km apart. This is an excellent example of technology bringing people closer together and leading to a truly global economy.
I n today's fast-paced landscape of global communication, it is often critically important for many different groups to exchange messages securely, without any risk of eavesdroppers leaking the information they contain.So far, the most cutting-edge techniques for ensuring this level of security have often involved light waves transmitted through optical fibres, or radio waves sent through the air.However, these approaches face a number of drawbacks, particularly regarding the limited speeds at which large messages can be sent.Since the bandwidths available in optical fibres are strictly limited, they can quickly become saturated, leaving little room for information to propagate.
WHETHER we use it to estimate how far away a thunderstorm is, or simply take it for granted that we can have a conversation with someone on the other side of the world, we all know that light travels extremely fast. Indeed, special relativity teaches us that nothing in the universe can ever move faster than the speed of light in a vacuum: 2,99792,458ms -1 . However, there is no such limitation on how slowly light can travel. For the last few years, researchers have been routinely slowing light to just a few metres per second, and have recently even stopped it dead in its tracks so that it can be stored for future use.