National Geographic News
Teleportation Takes Quantum Leap
Stefan Lovgren
for National Geographic News
It sounds like something out of Star Trek.
Austrian researchers have teleported photons (particles of light) across the Danube River in Vienna using technology that calls to mind Scotty beaming up Captain Kirk in the science fiction series.
"We were able to perform a quantum teleportation experiment for the first time ever outside a university laboratory," said Rupert Ursin, a researcher at the Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Vienna in Austria.
The researchers read the "blueprints" of the photons they wanted to teleport. They then broke up the photons into smaller particles called quantum bits and sent these bits, along with the blueprints, through a fiber-optic cable in a sewage pipe under the river.
At the other end, replicas of the original photons were created. The original photons ceased to exist once the replicas were created.