It may be possible to catch and release light.

The key to this new research is the "exciton". This describes the pairing of an electron that has been kicked into a higher energy state by a photon, with a hole or gap it (or another electron) leaves within the shell or orbit around the nucleus of an atom. Despite its new high energy state the electron remains paired with one of the holes or positions that has been vacated by electrons moving to a higher energy state. When an electron's high energy state decays again it is drawn back to the hole it is linked to and a photon is once again emitted.

That cycle usually happens very quickly but if one could find a way to freeze or hold an exciton in place for any length of time one could delay the reemitting of a photon and effectively slow or even freeze light. . .

When creating these . . . quantum dots of a few 10-100nm in size physicists some times cause the material to splash when depositing it onto a surface leaving, not a useful dot, but a doughnut shaped ring of material. Though originally created by accident these "Aharonov-Bohm nano rings" are now a source of study in their own right and in this case seemed just the right size for enclosing an exciton. . .

if a combination of magnetic and electric fields is applied to these nano-rings they can actually then simply tune the electric field to freeze an exciton in place or let it collapse and re-emit a photon. . .

"This has significant implications for the development of light based computing which would require an effective and reliable mechanism such as this to manipulate light. "

The technique could also be used to develop a "buffer" of incoming photons which could re-release them in sequence at a later date thus creating an effect not unlike the concept of "Slow Glass" first suggested by science fiction author Bob Shaw several decades ago.

I wonder if there are practical difficulties when scaled up to human sized objects. How much energy would be required to control significant numbers of photons? How hot would objects controlled in this way become?

We have electrochromatic glass which darkens to reduce light transmission when current is applied, and thermotropic glass which darkens when heated, and layered glass which does both, but none actually captures the photons for later use.