14 DAY TRIAL // Using quantum teleportation, the act of reconstructing data in a different place, is something straight of Star Trek. Now, it seems even this Sci-Fi feat has been one-upped by scientists at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology.
What they did, apparently, was to break the distance record for quantum teleportation by transferring information from one photon to another across 63 miles of optical fiber in an NIST laboratory in Colorado.
Although this doesn't seem much from an electron point of view and standard fiber optics distances, photons traveling in fiber optics are a completely different story. Apparently, 99 percent of photons would never make the complete trip, but this time, the lone photon carrying quantum data was aided by newer detectors that could pick up the faint signal of the lone light particle.
Although this isn't the sort of feat that heralds an overnight appearance of the quantum internet and mass data transmissions based on photons, in time, it might get there.
Data carrying photons were long-time considered unsuited for such long-distance operations since most of these particles were lost in the fiber. To discover an alternative to photons for carrying quantum data at similar speeds was a task deemed extremely daunting for the NIST engineers in Colorado.
NIST researchers made data-carrying photons the reliable electron replacers
Fortunately, the new detectors that prolonged the quantum data transmission of the traveling Photon made looking for an alternative unnecessary, as now the researchers can rely on the incredible speed of the photon to reach its destination anytime.
The detectors rely on superconducting nanowires made of molybdenum silicide, and they can record more than 80 percent of arriving photons, revealing whether they are in the same or different time slots, each just one nanosecond long. The experiments were performed at wavelengths commonly used in telecommunications, so expect a quantum internet to arrive soon.
Because standardization is the secret to the invention of a successful technology, the quantum photon teleportation managed to jump from a success rate of merely 25% to a whopping 83% thanks to the new detectors. This way we should expect that quantum internet won't be just fast, but Star Trek-level fast.