Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is a coherent optical nonlinearity which renders a medium transparent within a narrow spectral range around an absorption line. Extreme dispersion is also created within this transparency "window" which leads to "slow light", described below. It is in essence a quantum interference effect that permits the propagation of light through an otherwise opaque atomic medium. EIT is based on the destructive interference of the transition probability amplitude between atomic states. Closely related to EIT are coherent population trapping (CPT) phenomena.