New Method Of Quantum Teleportation Could Bring Quantum Internet

New Method Of Quantum Teleportation Could Bring Quantum Internet

A team of Dutch scientists just announced a new method of quantum teleportation that uses entanglement as a form of communication. They can successfully teleport data over a distance of three metres. But, more importantly, they can also do so with 100 per cent reliability.

The feat in and of itself isn’t such a big breakthrough. Quantum teleportation is not a new thing. In fact, scientists have been doing it for years and for distances of up to 100km. But te 100 per cent reliability part of it is a big deal. This brings us one step closer to a real, bonafide quantum computer. Or at least, in the words of the lab’s press release, it’s “an important step towards a quantum network for communication between future ultra-fast quantum computers — a quantum internet.”

That sounds pretty cool! But wait ’til you hear how they do it. The researchers actually trapped electrons inside of diamonds at extremely low temperatures and then zapped them with lasers, producing quantum bits (a.k.a. qubits) that can describe many values. The diamonds act as “mini prisons” for the electrons, they said, and enabled them to create a spin for the electrons and read it back accurately. Through entanglement, they effectively transported data between the qubits over a distance of three metres with 100 per cent accuracy. Next, they plan on doing it over a distance of about 1.5km.

The Dutch team just published a paper about the new method in Science, but the party is just getting excited. If they’re able to scale this method, we’ll be breaking through the next frontier in computing, introducing a new standard of speed and power never before seen. We won’t be transporting our crew members onto the surfaces of far off planets, like in Star Trek. But at least the internet will be really freaking fast. [Science via NYT]


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.