The story behind "stored light": trapping and manipulating photonic states in atoms

Summary form only given. Modern optical techniques allow one to accurately control light using atoms and to manipulate atoms using light. In this talk we review several ideas indicating how such techniques can be used for accurate manipulation of quantum states of atomic ensembles and photons. In particular, we will describe methods that allows for an ideal transfer of quantum states between light fields and metastable states of matter. The technique is based on trapping quantum states of photons in coherently driven atomic media, in which the group velocity is adiabatically reduced to zero. Experimental progress toward implementation of these ideas will be discussed as well the methods for manipulating stored states.