A team of researchers say they have successfully demonstrated Star Trek-style ‘teleportation’ of images using a quantum transport method that does not physically send any information between the sender and receiver.
Likening the first-of-its-kind transfer to the teleporters used in the fictional Star Trek universe, the researchers behind their accomplishment say it is a first critical step toward realizing a quantum network for higher-dimension entangled states.
“Traditionally, two communicating parties physically send the information from one to the other, even in the quantum realm,” said Professor Andrew Forbes, the lead investigator from Wits University. “Now, it is possible to teleport information so that it never physically travels across the connection – a “Star Trek” technology made real.”
The researchers note that previous attempts to use the quantum realm to transport information have shown limited success. However, even those methods required some amount of information to pass physically between the sender and the recipient. Their process, on the other hand, uses laser optics to remove that part of the equation, allowing for information to be sent without any physical transfer.
The key to their breakthrough, which was published in the journal Nature Communications, was the use of a device known as a nonlinear optical detector. This device, they say, “circumvents” the need for additional entangled photons to be part of the communication like in previous experiments, resulting in a system that works for any “pattern” that needs to be sent.
The team also reports that their approach incorporates as many as fifteen dimensions of data and is scalable to even higher dimensions, “paving the way for quantum network connections with high information capacity.”
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