Early steps taken with information teleportation
Quantum systems have long been speculated to revolutionise several industries, from communications to computing. A research team headed up by a University of Maryland graduate student have demonstrated part of this revolution by teleporting information between entangled ions.
The experiment makes use of ytterbium ions, more commonly know as charged atoms, and transferred quantum information written on one ion onto another entangled ion three feet away by use of a transfer protocol. The current process takes approximately twelve minutes to correctly entangle the opposite ion, a process the researchers wish in speed up in order to let make the information teleportation process viable. The time taken to achieve entanglement translates into 30 million attempts in twelve minutes.
Previous experiments have successfully teleported photons across the Danube River, a distance of over 600 metres.
Brett Venter
