Beam me up Scotty! Teleportation is HERE!

Well, it may take a few years to work out the kinks yet. But a team in China is developing quantum teleportation for communications purposes, and have achieved actual teleportation of photons. Check it out...

Open-air quantum teleportation performed across a 97km lake

Sending signals through fiber optic cable is reliable and fast, but because of internal absorption and other effects, they will lose photons—which is a problem when the number of photons being sent is small. This is of particular concern in quantum networks, which typically involve a small number of entangled photons. Direct transmission through free space (vacuum or air) experiences less photon loss, but it's very difficult to align a distant receiver perfectly with the transmitter so that photons arrive at their destination. 

A group in China has made significant progress toward solving that problem, via a high accuracy pointing and tracking system. Using this method, Juan Yin and colleagues performed quantum teleportation (copying of a quantum state) using multiple entangled photons through open air between two stations 97 kilometers apart across a lake. Additionally, they demonstrated entanglement between two receivers separated by 101.8km, transmitted by a station on an island roughly halfway between them. 

Get the full article here:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/08/open-air-quantum-teleportation-performed-across-a-97km-lake/ 

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