Quantum Teleportation Was Just Achieved With 90% Accuracy Over a 44km Distance

Scientists are edging closer to making a super-secure, superfast quantum internet possible: they've now been able to 'teleport' high-fidelity quantum information over a total distance of 44 kilometres (27 miles).

Both data fidelity and transfer distance are crucial when it comes to building a real, working quantum internet, and making progress in either of these areas is cause for celebration for those building our next-generation communications network.

In this case the team achieved a greater than 90 percent fidelity (data accuracy) level with its quantum information, as well as sending it across extensive fibre optic networks similar to those that form the backbone of our existing internet.

"We're thrilled by these results," says physicist Panagiotis Spentzouris, from the Fermilab particle physics and accelerator laboratory based at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

"This is a key achievement on the way to building a technology that will redefine how we conduct global communication."

Quantum internet technology uses qubits; unmeasured particles that remain suspended in a mix of possible states like spinning dice yet to settle.

Qubits that are introduced to one another have their identities 'entangled' in ways that become obvious once they're finally measured. Imagine these entangled qubits as a pair of dice - while each can land on any number, they are both guaranteed to add to seven no matter how far apart they are. Data in one location instantly reflects data in another.

By clever arrangement of entangling three qubits, it's possible to force the state of one particle to adopt the 'dice roll' of another via their mutually entangled partner. In quantum land, this is as good as turning one particle into another, teleporting its identity across a distance in a blink.

The entanglement still needs to be established in the beginning though, and then maintained as the qubits are sent to their eventual destination through optical fibres (or satellites). DAVID NIELD