Before you jump off the deep end and have visions of “Beam me up Scotty” the research is nowhere near that advanced yet! However, we are few steps closer than you may think, as scientists from Japan and Switzerland, have produced new research developments which “could change the very face of computing and technological security,” according to the National Journal. The study of quantum teleportation is a process which uses the peculiarities of entangled quantum states in a pair of particles, such as photons, to transfer information from one location to another instantaneously.
The two research teams in question have said they achieved breakthroughs in controlling quantum teleportation. The Japanese scientific research team have developed a “hybrid technique involving continuous variable teleportation of a discrete variable, photonic qubit.” This fresh technique minimizes photon loss during the quantum teleportation of information between photons, thereby “allowing for a faithful qubit transfer even with imperfect continuous variable entangled states,” they said.
In the interim, the Swiss scientists, headed up by Andreas Wallraff of the Quantum Device Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, has accomplished “full deterministic quantum teleportation with feed forward” using a “chip-based superconducting circuit architecture” (a microchip) the scientists said.
The device the team have created appears to get around a big problem in quantum teleportation, that of measuring the particles used in the process, known as qubits, alters them. The Swiss team have crafted a chip with micro circuits that “each act like an atom,” the National Journal reported, explaining that “tiny transmission lines connect the circuits and carry microwave radiation, which essentially joins the circuits and their properties to one another.” Utilising this device, those scientists were able to input quantum information into one circuit and cause a signal going to a second circuit to change, then “use that altered signal to determine the first circuit’s original properties and transfer them to the second circuit.” In simpler terms, the scientists were able to “teleport” an electrical current from one circuit to another and measure the changed state with altering it, something no one has ever accomplished before.
These developments and other quantum teleportation breakthroughs are to be seen as keys to the maturation of quantum computing and quantum encryption. These two intertwined, embryonic technologies theoretically could herald vastly more powerful computers than we see today and with them we maybe able to achieve the ultimate in cyber security, the uncrackable protocol, able to totally protect data transfers.
[Image via oko-planet]