A glass fiber that brings light to a standstill

Atoms coupled to a glass fiber: A system that can slow down light dramatically.
Image credit goes to: TU Wien
Light is an extremely useful tool for quantum communication, but it has one major disadvantage: it usually travels at the speed of light and cannot be kept in place. A team of scientists at the Vienna University of Technology has now demonstrated that this problem can be solved – not only in strange, unusual quantum systems, but in the glass fiber networks we are already using today.