Quantum link connects light, ions.Instantly teleporting people and objects from one planet to another is a staple of science fiction. Now, physicists at the University of Michigan (body, education) University of Michigan - A large cosmopolitan university in the Midwest USA. Over 50000 students are enrolled at the University of Michigan's three campuses. The students come from 50 states and over 100 foreign countries. in Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, city (1990 pop. 109,592), seat of Washtenaw co., S Mich., on the Huron River; inc. 1851. It is a research and educational center, with a large number of government and industrial research and development firms, many in high-technology fields such as have taken a promising step toward teleporting at least some traits from atom to atom. The new technique relies on a well-known but still mysterious phenomenon called entanglement, in which specific quantum traits of elementary particles become correlated, even at vast distances (SN: 12/8/01, p. 364). In this experiment, the researchers used a laser pulse to induce a cadmium ion to emit a photon whose polarization was entangled en·tan·gle tr.v. en·tan·gled, en·tan·gling, en·tan·gles 1. To twist together or entwine into a confusing mass; snarl. 2. To complicate; confuse. 3. To involve in or as if in a tangle. with the ion's spin, a magnetic quantum property. Polarization is the orientation of a photon's electromagnetic field electromagnetic field Property of space caused by the motion of an electric charge. A stationary charge produces an electric field in the surrounding space. If the charge is moving, a magnetic field is also produced. A changing magnetic field also produces an electric field. , and an ion's spin is akin to a top's motion. Entangling the photon and ion is a step toward entangling two widely separated ions, say Boris B. Blinov and his colleagues. To do that, the team would need to entangle en·tan·gle tr.v. en·tan·gled, en·tan·gling, en·tan·gles 1. To twist together or entwine into a confusing mass; snarl. 2. To complicate; confuse. 3. To involve in or as if in a tangle. each ion with its own photon and then entangle the photons. That last step would destroy the photons and entangle the two ions, Blinov says. Such ion-to-ion links could serve as portals for teleportation tel·e·por·ta·tion n. A hypothetical method of transportation in which matter or information is dematerialized, usually instantaneously, at one point and recreated at another. and for data exchanges between future quantum computers. The scientists detail their advance in the March 11 Nature. The Michigan team is the first to prove the entanglement of a photon and an ion. However, scientists suspect that such quantum links have formed in previous experiments, Blinov notes. The researchers are now devising a new setup that can simultaneously stimulate each of two ions, located meters apart, to emit an entangled photon to be entangled with its counterpart. |
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