E. B. Aleksandrov, V. S. Zapasskii, “Chasing ‘slow light’”, UFN, 2006, Volume 176, Number 10,Pages <nobr>1093

This article is cited in 27 papers

FROM THE CURRENT LITERATURE

Chasing ‘slow light’

E. B. Aleksandrov^a, V. S. Zapasskii^b

^a A. F. Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences
^b St. Petersburg State University, V. A. Fock Institute of Physics

Abstract: A critical review of experimental studies on so-called ‘slow light’ arising due to the anomalously high steepness of the refractive index dispersion under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency or coherent population oscillations is presented. It is shown that a considerable amount of experimental evidence of the observation of ‘slow light’ is not related to the low group velocity of light and can be easily interpreted in terms of a standard model of interaction of light with a saturable absorber.

PACS: 42.25.Bs, 42.50.Gy, 42.50.Md

Received: January 26, 2006
Revised: February 16, 2006

DOI: 10.3367/UFNr.0176.200610f.1093