Scientists Find Method To Reliably Teleport Data 202
An anonymous reader writes "Scientists at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience say they've managed to reliably teleport quantum information stored in one bit of diamond to another sitting three meters away (abstract, pre-print) . Now, their goal is to extend the range over a distance of a kilometer. '[R]eliability of quantum teleportation has been elusive. For example, in 2009, University of Maryland physicists demonstrated the transfer of quantum information, but only one of every 100 million attempts succeeded, meaning that transferring a single bit of quantum information required roughly 10 minutes. In contrast, the scientists at Delft have achieved the ability "deterministically," meaning they can now teleport the quantum state of two entangled electrons accurately 100 percent of the time. They did so by producing qubits using electrons trapped in diamonds at extremely low temperatures. According to Dr. Hanson, the diamonds effectively create 'miniprisons' in which the electrons were held. The researchers were able to establish a spin, or value, for electrons, and then read the value reliably.'"
This research should receive enormous funding. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but that is just incorrect (Score:2, Insightful)
. There's no such thing as a passive detector.
A larger part of quantum mechanics is there is no such thing as any interaction being passive. You're detector could consist of a photon bouncing off of a particle or the interaction between two particles. Until you make a measurement on that second particle, or it interacts with the environment, then you've created an entanglement between the detecting particle and the thing being measured. Any dependent interaction within a sealed system, whether called a detector or not, results in an entanglement of states, not breaking the superposition.
If instead we accepted what is said in the parent post as true, then entanglement could not exist, and you could go as far as to undermine all of quantum mechanics by finding issues with Bell's inequality, etc.
Re:How fast is the data transmitted? (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with the articles is that they use a misleading term "information". The quantum information is transmitted instantaneously. However, quantum information is not the same as classical information. Classical observers at either end of the experiment cannot set the quantum information that is transmitted. Therefore the no-communication theorem is not violated. Superluminal communication of classical information (what you and I think of as data) is not possible. The best way to think of this (as another slashdot user pointed out) is that you have a random number generator at two points separated by a distance. Both points generate the same random number regardless of how far away from each other they happen to be in space.
The practical application of this is not transmitting classical data faster than the speed of light (as that is not possible.) However, it could be used for an encryption mechanism that is unbreakable. This is done by taking the random numbers generated and using them to encrypt classical data, which is then transmitted by conventional means (radio etc) and then decrypting on the other end with the same set of random numbers. Nobody can decrypt the data unless they have the other entangled particle of which there can only be one.