Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Rainbow Trapped for the 1st Time...

http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn18205/dn18205-3_300.jpg

Oh, to catch a rainbow. Well, it's been done for the first time ever – and with just a simple lens and a plate of glass at that. The technique could be used to store information using light, a boon for optical computing and telecommunications.

All-optical computing devices promise to be faster and more efficient than current technology, but they suffer from the drawback that signals have to be converted back and forth from optical to electrical. The ability to "slow" light to a crawl or even trap it helps, as information in the light can then be manipulated directly.

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