“The basic concepts of the storage of light have been known for several years now, as well as possible applications,” Moshe Shuker of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology told PhysOrg.com. “What triggered our work was a paper by Howell’s group in Rochester in which they showed they can slow images and delay them for several nanoseconds. We wondered would it be possible to store images – and for how long? Since we used slowing delays and storage durations in the range of microseconds, we immediately noticed the effect of the diffusion of the atoms.”

In their technique, the researchers first stored an image (for example, the number “2”) in a light pulse. When that light pulse hits a gas of atoms, it is strongly absorbed, and excites the atoms. But when a second light beam is aimed at the gas, it drives the atoms to a unique quantum state, and causes the first pulse to pass through the vapor. This phenomenon is called electromagnetically induced transparency.

The bottom line: gas would become a storage medium. Your basic gas chamber would become a harddrive for a quantum computer. Let’s not forget the monitor capabilities. Picture a movie that surrounds you instead of laying flat on a screen before you and stored in a can of air. That’s what I’m thinking.

(via i09, physorg)