Harvard University researchers have halted a pulse of laser light in its tracks and revived it a fraction of a millimeter away.

They stopped it in a cloud of supercold sodium atoms, known as a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), and then restarted it in a second, distinct BEC as though the pulse had spookily jumped between the two locations.

The technique may someday be used in optical communications or ultraprecise navigation systems.