Slowing Light Via Beam Coupling in Dye-Doped Chiral Nematics

Apart from the fundamental interest of discovering the physical effects that are behind the light-matter interaction processes that make it possible, slowing and storing light currently attracts a lot of attention because the ability to control the propagation speed of optical pulses, to stop and to release them on demand, is a key tool in the manipulation of optical signals. Two main applications directly benefit from the ability to slow and store light: the first is the buffering/multiplexing of optical pulses, concerning telecommunications and optical delay lines, and the second is phase sensing, as employed for detecting small phase variations, realizing compact, highly-sensitive interferometers or implementing phase compensation in optical array systems.