Scientists teleport two different objects

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From: Dewayne Hendricks <[email protected]>
Date: October 5, 2006 1:51:59 AM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <[email protected]>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Scientists teleport two different objects
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Scientists teleport two different objects

POSTED: 4:36 p.m. EDT, October 4, 2006

<http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/10/04/teleportation.reut/ 
index.html>

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Beaming people in Star Trek fashion is  
still in the realms of science fiction but physicists in Denmark have  
teleported information from light to matter bringing quantum  
communication and computing closer to reality.

Until now scientists have teleported similar objects such as light or  
single atoms over short distances from one spot to another in a split  
second.

But Professor Eugene Polzik and his team at the Niels Bohr Institute  
at Copenhagen University in Denmark have made a breakthrough by using  
both light and matter.

"It is one step further because for the first time it involves  
teleportation between light and matter, two different objects. One is  
the carrier of information and the other one is the storage medium,"  
Polzik explained in an interview on Wednesday.

The experiment involved for the first time a macroscopic atomic  
object containing thousands of billions of atoms. They also  
teleported the information a distance of half a meter but believe it  
can be extended further.

"Teleportation between two single atoms had been done two years ago  
by two teams but this was done at a distance of a fraction of a  
millimeter," Polzik, of the Danish National Research Foundation  
Center for Quantum Optics, explained.

"Our method allows teleportation to be taken over longer distances  
because it involves light as the carrier of entanglement," he added.

Quantum entanglement involves entwining two or more particles without  
physical contact.

Although teleportation is associated with the science-fiction series  
Star Trek, no one is likely to be beamed anywhere soon.

But the achievement of Polzik's team, in collaboration with the  
theorist Ignacio Cirac of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics  
in Garching, Germany, marks an advancement in the field of quantum  
information and computers, which could transmit and process  
information in a way that was impossible before.

"It is really about teleporting information from one site to another  
site. Quantum information is different from classical information in  
the sense that it cannot be measured. It has much higher information  
capacity and it cannot be eavesdropped on. The transmission of  
quantum information can be made unconditionally secure," said Polzik  
whose research is reported in the journal Nature.

Quantum computing requires manipulation of information contained in  
the quantum states, which include physical properties such as energy,  
motion and magnetic field, of the atoms.

"Creating entanglement is a very important step but there are two  
more steps at least to perform teleportation. We have succeeded in  
making all three steps -- that is entanglement, quantum measurement  
and quantum feedback," he added.

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