Slowing and stopping light using an optomechanical crystal array

Understand

One of the major advances needed to realize all-optical information processing of light is the ability to delay or coherently store and retrieve optical information in a rapidly tunable manner.

• In the classical domain, this optical buffering is expected to be a key ingredient to managing the flow of information over complex optical networks.
• Such a system also has profound implications for quantum information processing, serving as a long-term memory that can store the full quantum information contained in an optical pulse.
• Here we suggest a novel approach to light storage involving an optical waveguide coupled to an optomechanical crystal array, where light in the waveguide can be dynamically and coherently transferred into long-lived mechanical vibrations of the array.