Physicists have teleported quantum information from one ensemble of atoms to another 150 metres away, a demonstration that paves the way towards quantum routers and a quantum Internet technologies behind a quantum internet will be quantum routers capable of transmitting quantum information from one location to another without destroying it.
That’s no easy task. Quantum bits or qubits are famously fragile—a single measurement destroys them. So it’s not all obvious how macroscopic objects such as routers in a fibre optics network can handle qubits without demolishing them.
However, physicists have a trick up their sleeve to help send qubits safely. This trick is teleportation, a standard tool in any decent quantum optics lab.
It relies on the strange phenomenon of entanglement in which two quantum objects share the same existence. That link ensures that no matter how far apart they are, a measurement on one particle instantly influences the other.
It is this ‘influence’ that allows physicists to transmit quantum information from one point in space to another without it passing through the space in between.
Of course, teleportation is tricky, but physicists are getting better at it. They’ve teleported quantum information from one photon to another, from ions to photons and even from a macroscopic ensemble of atoms to a photon.
via First Teleportation from One Macroscopic Object to Another | MIT Technology Review.
Also see: http://phys.org/news/2012-11-quantum-teleportation-atomic-ensembles.html
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1211.2892: Quantum Teleportation Between Remote Atomic-Ensemble Quantum Memories