Researchers at the University of Rochester have achieved a long-sought goal of slowing waves of light to one-three-hundredth of its normal velocity and using those harnessed pulses to store an image.

Physicists said the new approach to taming light could hasten the arrival of a futuristic era in which computers and other devices will process information on optical beams instead of with electricity.

The researchers created a four-inch-long chamber filled with cesium gas heated to about 212 degrees Fahrenheit. When they sent pulses of laser light through that gas, the cesium atoms put the brakes on the leading edge of that wave, creating a photonic traffic jam.

In one experiment, the image was clear even when a single photon was beamed through a stencil.