Room temperature slow light in a quantum-well waveguide via coherent population oscillation

We report room temperature demonstration of slow light propagation via coherent population oscillation (CPO) in a GaAs quantum well waveguide. Measurements of the group delay of an amplitude modulated signal resonant with the heavy-hole exciton transition reveal delays as long as 830 ps. The measured bandwidth, which approaches 100 MHz, is related to the lifetime of the photoexcited electron-hole (e-h) plasma as expected for a CPO process. (c) 2005 Optical Society of America