Teleporting people through space, as is done in Star Trek, is impossible due to the laws of physics. Teleporting information is another matter, however, thanks to the mind-boggling world of quantum mechanics and a team of Dutch scientists.

Researchers at TU Delft’s Kavli Institute of Nanoscience have succeeded in deterministically transferring the information contained in a quantum bit – the quantum analogue of a classical bit – to a different quantum bit 3 meters away, without the information having traveled through the intervening space: teleportation.

This development is an important step towards a quantum network for communication between future ultra-fast quantum computers – a quantum internet. Quantum computers will be able to solve certain important problems that even today’s supercomputers are unable to tackle. Furthermore, a quantum internet will enable completely secure information transfer, as surreptitious eavesdropping will be fundamentally impossible in such a network.

To achieve teleportation the scientists made use of an unusual phenomenon: entanglement. Einstein didn’t believe in this prediction and called it ‘spooky action at a distance’.

“Entanglement is arguably the strangest and most intriguing consequence of the laws of quantum mechanics. When two particles become entangled, their identities merge: their collective state is precisely determined but the individual identity of each of the particles has disappeared,” said Professor Ronald Hanson, the head of the research project. “The entangled particles behave as one, even when separated by a large distance. The distance in our tests was three meters, but in theory the particles could be on either side of the universe.”

Hanson’s research group is the first to have succeeded in teleporting information between qubits in different computer chips.

“The unique thing about our method is that the teleportation is guaranteed to work 100%. The information will always reach its destination, so to speak. And, moreover, the method also has the potential of being 100% accurate,” said Hanson.

Hanson’s research group produces qubits using electrons in diamonds. Diamonds form ‘mini prisons’ for electrons whenever a nitrogen atom is located in the position of one of the carbon atoms.

“The fact that we’re able to view these miniature prisons individually makes it possible for us to study and verify an individual electron and even a single atomic nucleus. We’re able to set the spin (rotational direction) of these particles in a predetermined state, verify this spin and subsequently read out the data,” said Hanson. “We do all this in a material that can be used to make chips out of. This is important as many believe that only chip-based systems can be scaled up to a practical technology.”

The teleportation breakthrough could revolutionize the way information is shared between computers. Not only would quantum information systems share data faster than any current internet service provider could, but also in a more secure fashion, nearly incapable of being hacked.

Hanson is planning to repeat the experiment this summer over a distance of 1300 metres, with chips located in various buildings on TU Delft’s campus, which could provide the ultimate evidence to disprove Einstein’s rejection of entanglement.