2020 is shaping up to be an exciting year for the field of quantum physics. In an article published on December 23rd, 2019, in Nature Physics scientists were able to demonstrate quantum teleportation, between computer chips for the first time.
Scientists from the University of Bristol in the UK, worked together with scientists from the Technical University in Denmark (DTU), to link two particles across a gap using quantum entanglement.
Entanglement is when a group or a pair of particles is generated, interact, or share special proximity. The quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently, this entanglement distinguishes the difference between quantum and regular physics.
Physicist, Dan Llewellyn, from Bristol explains:
We were able to demonstrate a high-quality entanglement link across two chips in the lab, where photons on either chip share a single quantum state.” Each chip was then fully programmed to perform a range of demonstrations which utilize the entanglement.
The team was able to generate pairs of entangled photons, to encode quantum information with high accuracy and little interference. Up to four qubits, (which is the quantum equivalent of classical computing bits) were linked together. This was accomplished in a reprogrammable linear-optic circuit that facilitates Bell projection and fusion operation, on silicon-photonic circuitry.
The flagship demonstration was a two-chip teleportation experiment, whereby the individual quantum state of a particle is transmitted across the two chips after a quantum measurement is performed. This measurement utilizes the strange behavior of quantum physics, which simultaneously collapses the entanglement link and transfers the particle state to another particle already on the receiver chip; Said, Llewellyn.
Co-author, Dr. Imad Faruque also commented:
Based on our previous result of on-chip high-quality single-photon sources, we have built an even more complex circuit containing four sources… all of these sources are tested and found to be nearly identical emitting nearly identical photons, which is an essential criterion for the set of experiments we had performed, such as entanglement swapping.
The team also left a comment in the Nature Physics article stating; “Our work lays the groundwork for large-scale integrated photonic quantum technologies for communications and computations.”
They were able to achieve results of 91% efficiency in their quantum teleportation trials, with these numbers they are well on their way to making sci-fi technologies a reality.
