Ok, so not quite - Chinese scientists have successfully 'teleported' a photon particle between a ground station in Tibet across 1400 km to a low Earth orbit satellite.
The significance of this, according to the paper's authors, includes the fact that they have surpassed the previous distance such particles were able to be teleported over from 100 km. To achieve such an increase involved using a variety of techniques including high bandwidth, narrow beam divergence, and high-accuracy acquiring, pointing and tracking (APT).
Overview of the set-up for ground-to-satellite quantum teleportation of a single photon with a distance up to 1400 km. Credit: arXiv:1707.00934 [quant-ph]
It is important to be aware that this is not the transportation of one physical object from one point to another. We are still a long way away from being able to send anything that is not a quantum-scale object (such as people).This is the ability to send information across a great distance in a highly secure manner using a technique known as quantum entanglement.
Put simply (so that your author can understand it!), quantum entanglement involves creating two identical particles that occupy the same space. When the state of one is changed, the other changes in relation, no matter how far apart the particles are. This allows ultra-fast and highly secure communications – such particles are unable to be observed without changing, and thus alerting whoever is at either end. This is potentially the cornerstone for the secure communications of the future. Imagine being able to send data over the Internet and know with absolute certainty that it cannot be secretly intercepted!
But it does have its drawbacks. The old method of sending photon particles down fibre cables was limited to the old distance of 100km due to signal degradation. Atmospheric conditions cause similar signal loss – in this experiment, the Chinese scientists sent millions of photons over 32 days with only 911 successes.
I guess time will tell whether such problems can be overcome. One thing is for sure, however: It will be years before this technology is able to be used in communications, let alone become advanced enough to transfer physical objects. Cries of "Beam me up, Scotty!" will have to wait for now.
WRITTEN BY Bedders - EDITED BY Eaglesg
SOURCE: arxiv.org/
