Chinese Researchers Quantum Teleport Photons Over 60 Miles Alex Knapp, Forbes Staff 5/11/2012 @ 11:58AM Since 1997,

researchers have been able to quantum teleport photons with a major record being set by researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China in Shanghai. In 2010, that team successfully teleported a photon over 16km . Now that same team has released new findings, in which they claim to have tele ported photons nearly 100km, or over 60 miles. Now, quantum teleportation isn t quite the same thing as the teleportation in Star Trek. When researchers teleport a photon, they aren t teleporting the actual phot on, but rather the information contained in it through quantum entanglement. In essence, the second photon at the end of the teleport becomes the first one or a t least, it becomes an identical qubit of information. So the information is exc hanged without actually travelling through the intervening distance. (If that sounds bizarre and frightening, you re in good company. Albert Einstein u nderstatedly called the process of quantum entanglement spooky action at a distan ce. ) The challenge for quantum teleportation is that it has to be done in free space. Fiberoptics don t work, because once you get to distances over about 1 kilometer, the fiber absorbs so much light that the information is lost. But while a fiber optic cable can keep photons focused, moving over free space means using lasers which inevitably causes the beam of light to spread out over time. However, usin g a powerful laser along with some other optical equipment, the researchers here developed a technique to keep the beam focused over the course of 97km, and suc cessfully achieved quantum teleportation. The ability to teleport information means that it could be possible to have worl dwide communications that are impossible to listen in on. Because in quantum tel eportation, the information doesn t travel over any intervening distances, there s n o way to tap into the communication. As Technology Review notes, these guys clear ly have their eye on the possibility of satellite-based quantum cryptography whi ch would provide ultra secure communications around the world. That technology is still a long way off, however. Despite the fact that the comm unication developed here is very efficient, it s also very slow. They ll also have t o keep improving the distance. 60 miles for teleportation is a new record. It s im pressive. But communications satellites are typically in geosynchronous orbit 22 ,236 miles up in the air. Still, while there s still a long way to go before we have true quantum-teleportat ion powered communications, this is a huge step in that direction.