Stationary Light Pulses without Bragg Gratings

The underlying mechanism of the stationary light pulse (SLP) was identified as a band gap being created by a Bragg grating formed by two counter-propagating coupling fields of similar wavelength. Here we present a more general view of the formation of SLPs, namely several balanced four-wave mixing processes sharing the same ground-state coherence. Utilizing this new concept we report the first experimental observation of a bichromatic SLP at wavelengths for which no Bragg grating can be established. We also demonstrate the production of a SLP directly from a propagating light pulse without prior storage. Being easily controlled externally makes SLPs a very versatile tool for low-light-level nonlinear optics and quantum information manipulation.