Slow and fast light: basic concepts and recent advancements based on nonlinear wave-mixing processes

After a review of the basic concepts of slow fast 1 light, recent advancements based on nonlinear wave-mixing processes are described. As a nonlinear medium, the authors focus on a liquid crystal light valve showing that it allows obtaining a large control of the group delay, with a maximum fractional delay of 1, and a deceleration of light pulses down to group velocities as small as 0.2mm/s. A theoretical model accompanies the observations and accounts for them in the general framework of two-wave mixing in the light valve. At the end, a high-sensitivity interferometer is presented as an example of slow light applications. Two-wave mixing in a liquid crystal light valve: the input pulse is sent together with a pump; at the output several diffraction orders are obtained with different group delays. From [28].

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