The phenomenon which Einstein called “spooky action at a distance” may revolutionize the way how we communicate in the future
We have taken some huge strides in the field of Quantum computing in the last couple of years — from Google & IBM developing the next-gen quantum computers to players like Microsoft & Amazon offering Cloud-based quantum computing services to Chinese scientists achieving quantum teleportation between two suborbital satellites and Earth.
There is still this argument that quantum computing is a very expensive endeavor since it requires exotic materials like superconducting metals. This theory was recently challenged as well in a groundbreaking discovery by a team of researchers at the University of Chicago, where they were able to produce quantum states utilizing everyday electronics.
What makes quantum computing so intriguing and having such futuristic applications is its ability to process information using Qubits — existing simultaneously in both states 0 and 1, also exhibiting the properties of both states. This gives rise to the phenomenon of entanglement — a process where two fundamental particles are joined together in such a way that nothing else can share their information.
The qubits can then be polarized in three different dimensions simultaneously to carry even more information than the qubits using a process known as quantum teleportation, giving the entangled quantum particles the ability to influence each other’s state even if they are far apart.
A) Chip Schematic. Black lines represent single-mode waveguides for the single photons, red and blue pulses represent the photon energy in each path. Yellow bars represent external phase control. B) Teleportation setup. C) Entanglement swapping setup. D) 4-photon GHZ state preparation. Image Credit — University of Bristol
Researchers at the University of Bristol and the Technical University of Denmark have achieved another quantum teleportation landmark — first time between two computer chips. Employing the same mechanism of quantum entanglement that I spoke about earlier, where two particles become so intertwined with each other that they can instantly communicate with each other without being physically or electronically connected.
“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.”
~Dan Llewellyn, co-author of the study
This successful quantum communication between nano-scale circuits raises some interesting prospects for the future. Not only that, it challenges our current understanding of the laws of physics, which states that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.
The new study brings the work of pure science fiction one step closer to reality. The team of researchers achieved the feat by generating a pair of entangled photons on two separate chips before making a measurement of one. This observation which changes the photon state is instantly replicated to the photon on the other chip.
The team was able to achieve a quantum teleportation success rate of 91% while being able to achieve some additional functions. One of them was entanglement swapping — where particles can swap states where they did not have any previous mediator interaction and also entangling four photons together. Quantum teleportation can ultimately lead us to ultra-secure & superfast communication in the future.
Complete Research was published in Journal Nature Physics.
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