While light travels at just below 300 million metres per second in a vacuum, EU-funded researchers have investigated the possibility to slow it down and even keep it still.
To stop the fastest moving thing in the Universe, researchers working on the EU-funded project SLICA (Stationary light in cold atoms) explored the use of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). This technique allows driving a quantum system, which is otherwise opaque for a probe laser beam, to transparency within a narrow frequency range.
Further details: Light, hold still!