Tandem Quantum Teleportation and Memory

Excerpt: Researchers Demonstrate Quantum Teleportation and Memory in Tandem<blockquote>In research that may be a key step toward real-life quantum communication—the transmission of information using atoms, photons, or other quantum objects—researchers created an experiment in which a quantum bit of information is transported across a distance of seven meters and briefly stored in memory. This is the first time that both quantum memory and teleportation, as the information transfer is known, have been demonstrated in a single experiment.

The experiment was performed by scientists from the University of Heidelberg in Germany, the University of Science and Technology of China, and the Atomic Institute of the Austrian Universities in Austria. The work was led by Prof. Jian-Wei Pan, a physicist at the University of Heidelberg.

“Such an interface to map the quantum states of photons onto the quantum states of matter, and to retrieve them without destroying the quantum character of the stored information, is an essential part of future quantum technologies,” said Pan to PhysOrg.com. “It represents an important step towards efficient and scalable connection of quantum networks.”

This setup does have some serious problems. The quantum memory duration is very short and the probability that the photon will be teleported is low. Therefore, the researchers say that “significant improvements” need to be made before the scheme could be used in practical applications. </blockquote>