Scientists Trap a Rainbow

An anonymous reader writes to tell us that Physicists from both the University of Surrey and Salford University have devised a method to trap a multi-colored rainbow of light inside a prism. "Previous attempts to slow and capture light have involved extremely low or cryogenic temperatures, have been extremely costly, and have only worked with one specific frequency of light at a time. The technique proposed by Professor Hess and Mr Kosmas Tsakmakidis involves the use of negative refractive index metamaterials along with the exploitation of the Goos Hänchen effect, which shows that when light hits an object or an interface between two media it does not immediately bounce back but seems to travel very slightly along that object, or in the case of metamaterials, travels very slightly backwards along the object."

Comments

Re:Does this mean

[Thanshin]

that if Apple brings back the old logo they will rule the Intarweb tubes? No. The tubes are already clogged with bees.

Re:Scientists Trap a Rainbow

[kebes]

First off, for those interested (and with subscriptions) let me provide a reference to the actual paper (from last week's Nature):
Kosmas L. Tsakmakidis, Allan D. Boardman & Ortwin Hess 'Trapped rainbow' storage of light in metamaterials Nature 450, 397-401 (15 November 2007) | doi: 10.1038/nature06285. (See also summary comment box, doi 10.1038/450330a.)

They propose a method that might. The meta-materials needed to do this with visible light don't exist yet. Your caution is quite correct. The paper is theoretical. An actual device has not yet been built. However this result is still significant because what they are showing is that the various results on "slow light" and "trapped light" can be realized in optical metamaterials. This is significant because metamaterials are in principle more amenable to technological deployment than the more exotic techniques of slowing light (ultra-cold condensates, etc.).

It's also worth noting that metamaterials at various wavelengths (e.g. microwave band and IR) have already been made. We are getting very close to optical metamaterials. For instance, see this review of the field:
Vladimir M. Shalaev Optical negative-index metamaterials Nature Photonics 1, 41 - 48 (2006) doi: 10.1038/nphoton.2006.49.

We already have prototype metamaterials at wavelengths of 780 nm, which is on the edge of the visible spectrum. Significantly, we already have metamaterials that operate in the IR band, which is what is used for modern fiber-optics, telecommunications, etc. The materials to date are not optimized, so it will of course be awhile before all these great applications of metamaterials are implemented in real telecom devices. But, still, we are getting quite close to these applications. In particular, I expect we'll see a commercial 'rainbow trapping' device for communications before we see a commercial 'invisibility cloak'!