(c) University of Sydney

Deutschlandfunk is a renowned German public-broadcasting radio station offering news and documentaries covering topics from politics to science. Birgit Stiller's interview gives insights into her research on hypersonic phonons for light storage: Light storage is fundamental for the development of various technologies, for example computer chips that work with light rather than electricity. Together with Moritz Merklein from the University of Sydney and Christian Wolff from the University of Southern Denmark, Birgit Stiller showed for the first time that it is possible to refresh phonons with light, which enables information to be stored and processed for a much longer time. This is an important step towards optical computer chips.

In the podcast, Birgit Stiller talks about the techniques they used, the difficulties the scientists faced and the possible applications. You can find the article and hear the podcast (both in German) on the website of Deutschlandfunk. Learn more about Birgit Stiller's research by reading the original publication in Optica: Coherently refreshing hypersonic phonons for light storage.