The speed of light can be slowed down

Quantum computers that use photons instead of electrons will become a reality when researchers from NTT (Japan) extend the travel time of light to store data.

They brought light into a crystal device with nano holes. These holes will keep the photon for about 1 nanosecond (1 billionth of a second), so that the speed of light can be only 1 / 50,000 times that in a vacuum.

IBM experts have also deflected the rays of light by putting them in chains of 100 microscopic rings to delay travel. These rings act as optical buffers on the chip.

Last year, a Harvard University team (USA) sought to slow down the speed of light when transmitting them through cold structures.

These methods show that light can be used to store information in a photon RAM - the basis for developing light memory for quantum computers.

TN