A team of six quantum physicists underneath the Computer and Space Sciences Building has become the first group to successfully achieve teleportation directly between two ions.
Chris Monroe, a physics professor at the university, heads one of 26 groups in the Joint Quantum Institute, a partnership between the university and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. His team of researchers recently succeeded in sending quantum information between two atoms, bringing the scientific community closer to the goal of practical quantum information processing.
Scientists want to use charged atoms rather than electronic circuits to build computers. The group’s breakthrough is one step on the very long road to this goal.
Quantum teleportation is not the buzz-and-flash transportation of Star Trek – no one gets beamed up anywhere. What does get “beamed,” though, is information.
Imagine two pieces of blank paper. After writing on the first piece, quantum teleportation would make the information appear on the second blank piece.
The experiment itself was completed successfully in September, but the research paper was published in the Jan. 23 issue of Science.
Researcher Steven Olmschenk explained the long gap between success and publication was caused by the amount of proof required with a claim this big.
“We couldn’t do it just once,” he said. “To prove we really did it, we had to do it a few thousand times.”
And they did – the team achieved successful teleportation 1,285 times in more than 250 consecutive hours of lab time.
For almost two weeks, the team worked around the clock until they had enough data collected to prove they had actually teleported quantum information. They worked alone, in eight-hour shifts in a lab with no lights.
“We were basically just babysitting the lasers,” Olmschenk said.
The lasers play several key roles in the process, including keeping the two atoms at one-thousandth of a degree Celsius above absolute zero – negative 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit. Olmschenk added, though, that most of the lasers don’t have any more power than a conventional laser pointer.
Monroe, the group leader, estimates the equipment in the teleportation project cost about $1 million.
“It would be more,” he said, “but we buy a lot of stuff on eBay.”
In addition, Monroe said the group’s salaries – he oversees 15 researchers working on four different projects – account for another $1 million in costs.
Aside from “substantial” start-up money from both the university and NIST, the Joint Quantum Institute – not just the Maryland group, Monroe emphasized – relies almost exclusively on federal grants.
A large amount comes from the National Science Foundation, he said, but many defense-sector agencies are “very interested in our work.” Grants from the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Defense and the National Security Agency reflect a notable government interest in quantum computing.
Monroe attributes this to the value of quantum computers in breaking complex codes.
“It’s not only if we can do it – they want to know when,” Monroe said. “If our adversaries can crack these codes in 50 years, that’s a long time, politically. But if it’s in 10 or 20 years, it affects how we encrypt things today. We want our secrets to stay secret for a long time.”
But what about beaming people up?
All the researchers have a different answer, all a variant of “no, but theoretically maybe.” The problem is that they aren’t physically moving anything – not the paper, just the writing.
“We could do it in theory,” Monroe said. “If we had a pile of the right atoms, like the atoms that make up Captain Kirk, we could maybe transfer the information about how they’re supposed to be arranged. But imagine William Shatner as a shapeless blob of atoms.”
For now, the Metro will still be the best way to get around town.
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