EIT on a chip
From this month’s Nature (if you don’t feel like registering, try one of these):
A two-laser trick that renders opaque media transparent can be achieved in systems of tiny optical resonators — with potentially profound consequences for optical communication and information processing.
The discovery of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) — an unusual effect that occurs when two laser beams interact within an optical material — and the use of novel techniques to fabricate ever smaller structures to control light have been recent exciting developments in optical physics. Writing in Physical Review Letters, Xu et al. neatly combine the two, demonstrating an on-chip, all-optical analogue of EIT based on the response of coupled optical microresonators. The result may open up untrodden pathways in photonics, offering prospects of smaller, more efficient devices for the manipulation and transmission of light.
(Thanks to eLMo for the link!)