Chasing 'Slow Light'

A critical review of experimental studies of the so-called 'slow light' arising due to anomalously high steepness of the refractive index dispersion under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency or coherent population oscillations is presented. It is shown that a considerable amount of experimental evidence for observation of the 'slow light' is not related to the low group velocity of light and can be easily interpreted in terms of a standard model of interaction of light with a saturable absorber.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, to be published in June issue of Phisics: Uspekhi under the title "Notes on Slow Light

Bragg Reflection Waveguide: Anti-Mirror Reflection and Light Slowdown

The effect of the light group velocity reduction in dielectric Bragg reflection waveguide structures (SiO$_2$/TiO$_2$) in the vicinity of the cutoff frequency is studied experimentally. The effect of anti-mirror reflection, specific for the Bragg reflection waveguides, is described and employed for detection of "slow light". The experiments were performed with the use of the Ti:sapphire laser pulses ~ 100 fs in length. The group index $n_g \sim$ 30 with a fractional pulse delay (normalized to the pulse width) of $\sim$ 10 is demonstrated. The problems and prospects of implementation of the slow-light devices based on the Bragg reflection waveguide structures are discussed.Comment: 11 pages, in the previous version, we failed to insert figure