Scientists have succeeded in teleporting the quantum state of a photon to a crystal over 25 kilometres of optical fibre.
The experiment, which was carried out by physicist at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), broke the previous record of 6 kilometres achieved ten years ago by the same UNIGE team.
Passing from light into matter, using teleportation of a photon to a crystal, shows that, in quantum physics, it is not the composition of a particle which is important, but rather its state, since this can exist and persist outside such extreme differences as those which distinguish light from matter.
The latest experiments have enabled verifying that the quantum state of a photon can be maintained whilst transporting it into a crystal without the two coming directly into contact. One needs to imagine the crystal as a memory bank for storing the photon's information; the latter is transferred over these distances using the teleportation effect.
The study was published in Nature Photonics.
