Scientists make major quantum teleportation breakthrough

"Nobody thought it was possible," say the researchers

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Scientists have achieved the impossible: quantum teleportation. But before you say "Beam me up, Scotty," this new technology isn't designed for teleporting people or things, but rather information.

The scientists behind the breakthrough have figured out how to teleport information over any distance almost instantly. What's more, they think they can make quantum teleportation work using existing communication networks.

"This is incredibly exciting because nobody thought it was possible," said Prof Prem Kumar of Northwestern University in the US, who led the research.

"Our work shows a path towards next-generation quantum and classical [communication] networks sharing a unified fibre-optic infrastructure. It opens the door to pushing quantum communications to the next level."

Published in the journal Optica, the research proposes that the breakthrough could make optical communications (any communication method that converts signals into light) super secure and nearly instantaneous limited only by the speed of light.

ENTANGLED INFORMATION

Quantum teleportation relies on a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement, where two particles are linked regardless of how far apart they are, and don't need to physically meet to exchange information.