Open-air quantum teleportation performed across a 97km lake
' Sending signals through fiber optic cable is reliable and fast, but because of internal absorption and other effects, they will lose photons—which is a problem when the number of photons being sent is small. This is of particular concern in quantum networks, which typically involve a small number of entangled photons. Direct transmission through free space (vacuum or air) experiences less photon loss, but it's very difficult to align a distant receiver perfectly with the transmitter so that photons arrive at their destination. A group in China has made significant progress toward solving that problem, via a high accuracy pointing and tracking system. Using this method, Juan Yin and colleagues performed quantum teleportation (copying of a quantum state) using multiple entangled photons through open air between two stations 97 kilometers apart across a lake. Additionally, they demonstrated entanglement between two receivers separated by 101.8km, transmitted by a station on an island roughly halfway between them.
However, quantum communication sometimes also requires coordination between two distant receivers, so the researchers set up the transmitter on an island in the lake. The receivers were 51.2 and 52.2 km from the photon source respectively, on opposite shores of Qinghai lake, forming a triangle with the transmitter. The distance between the receivers—101.8km—was far enough to create a 3 microsecond delay between measurements of the photon polarization.
Given this setup, there was no possible way for the two receiving stations to communicate. Yet the photons they registered were correlated, indicating entanglement was maintained.
These experiments provide not only a proof of principle for free-space quantum communication, but also a means to test the foundations of quantum theory over larger distances than before. With very large detector separation, quantum entanglement experiments can help differentiate between standard and alternative interpretations of the quantum theory. Though the long-distance aspect is promising, the fact that they set up on the shores of a lake (where no intervening obstacles exist) and that the experiment could only be performed successfully at night indicate its limitations. Author Yuao Chen told Ars via e-mail that they are working on solving the problem for daytime communication, but since the signal consists of single photons, it's not clear how this will work—the number of received photons fluctuated with the position of the Moon, so noise appeared to be a significant problem for them. Point-to-point communication will need to solve that problem as well before satellite-to-ground quantum networks are practical. '
arstechnica.com
Jim |
