Self-Stopping of Light

(Received April accepted April published May 2022) Here, we show that light can bring itself to a complete standstill (self-stop) via self-interaction mediated by the resonant nonlinearity in a fully homogeneous medium. An intense few-cycle pulse, entering the medium, may reshape to form a strongly coupled light-matter bundle, in which the energy is transferred from light to the medium and back periodically on the single-cycle scale. Such oscillating structure can decelerate, alter its propagation direction, and even completely stop, depending on the state of its internal degrees of freedom. This phenomenon is expected to occur in the few-cycle strong-field regime when the Rabi oscillation frequency becomes comparable with the frequency of the incoming light.

Automated summary

In this study, it is shown that light can self-stop in a fully homogeneous medium through self-interaction mediated by resonant nonlinearity. An intense few-cycle pulse entering the medium can reshape itself into a strongly coupled light-matter bundle, where energy is periodically transferred between light and the medium on a single-cycle scale. The oscillating structure can decelerate, change its propagation direction, and even fully stop, depending on the internal degrees of freedom.