Slowing light is expected to enhance light-matter interaction, leading to more compact sensing devices. By simple tests we show that the reality is more complex and the only relevant quantity is the wave electric field.
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An electric field (sometimes E-field) is the physical field that surrounds electrically charged particles and exerts force on all other charged particles in the field, either attracting or repelling them. It also refers to the physical field for a system of charged particles. Electric fields originate from electric charges and time-varying electric currents. Electric fields and magnetic fields are both manifestations of the electromagnetic field, one of the four fundamental interactions (also called forces) of nature.
The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted c, is a universal physical constant that is exactly equal to ). According to the special theory of relativity, c is the upper limit for the speed at which conventional matter or energy (and thus any signal carrying information) can travel through space. All forms of electromagnetic radiation, including visible light, travel at the speed of light. For many practical purposes, light and other electromagnetic waves will appear to propagate instantaneously, but for long distances and very sensitive measurements, their finite speed has noticeable effects.
Slow light is the propagation of an optical pulse or other modulation of an optical carrier at a very low group velocity. Slow light occurs when a propagating pulse is substantially slowed by the interaction with the medium in which the propagation takes place. Group velocities below c were known to be possible as far back as 1880, but could not be realized in a useful manner until 1991, when Stephen Harris and collaborators demonstrated electromagnetically induced transparency in trapped strontium atoms.
We demonstrate the use of both pixelated differential phase contrast (DPC) scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and off-axis electron holography (EH) for the measurement of electric fields and assess the advantages and limitations of each techn ...
In a recent discovery (Wen et al 2022 Phys. Rev. Lett. 129 045001), streaming waves were found in multipactor-induced plasma discharges. However, due to the limitations of a 1D simulation setup, these waves displayed only transverse dynamics. In this lette ...
The largest operating stellarator, Wendelstein 7-X, is of the quasi-isodynamic type. For this design to scale up to a fusion reactor, several criteria must be met, one of them being good fast ion confinement. The latter still has to be tested experimentall ...
