Slow light via four-wave mixing in a hot rubidium vapour

In this work, we report on an off-resonant four-wave mixing experiment via a ladder-type configuration in a hot rubidium atomic vapour. We find for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, that the generated light is delayed compared with the reference. At the same time, the seeded signal beam is also delayed, though the delay time is not as so large as the one that the generated light has. Both delayed times can be adjusted experimentally by controlling the two-photon detuning. The experimental results are in good agreement with our theoretical predictions. Our results may be important for storing telecom-band photons.