The conveyance of qubit information is technically far more complicated than the transfer of electrons in classical computers (as it occurs in any electric cable) or electromagnetic waves on the global internet, due to the delicate nature of the qubit.
Nonetheless, quantum information can currently be transported across hundreds of kilometers by optical fiber with negligible data loss.
Quantum entanglement makes this feasible. In this situation, physicists use the term quantum teleportation.
Quantum Teleportation
The name is unfortunate since quantum teleportation has nothing to do with the conveyance of matter between two places without crossing space, as depicted in popular science fiction.
- Quantum teleportation is the transfer of quantum characteristics of particles, often known as quantum states (qubits), from one location to another.
- Only quantum information is transferred in this manner, but there is no transmission line for the data to go from sender to receiver.
- In principle, entangled particles may be separated indefinitely without their entanglement dissipating. Since the 1990s, physicists have speculated that this characteristic enables quantum teleportation in practice.
- Two quantum particles (for example, photons) are entangled in a shared quantum physical state and then geographically separated without losing their shared state.
- The sender sends one particle to the receiver while the other stays at the sender. So much for the forethought. The real data transmission may now commence.
- A simultaneous measurement of the entangled qubit and the transported qubit is made at the sender (a so-called "Bell measurement").
- According to quantum physics, the measurement of the sender's particle determines the state of the entangled particle at the receiver automatically and instantly, without any direct connection between them.
- The result of the measurement at the transmitter is subsequently sent to the receiver over a standard communication channel.
- The receiver qubit and the entangled qubit at the receiver are projected onto one of four potential states as a result of the measurement.
- The receiver qubit may be changed to be in the same state as the sender qubit using knowledge about the measurement result at the sender.
- Without physically carrying a particle, the required (quantum) information is sent from the transmitter to the receiver in this manner. Of course, by manipulating his or her particle in the same manner, the receiver may also become the transmitter.
- Quantum teleportation is not about conveying information faster than light, but rather about safely moving quantum states from one location to another, since the outcome of the measurement is sent normally, i.e., not instantly.
- Quantum teleportation enables the transmission, storage, and processing of qubits, or quantum information.
As a result, a quantum internet, in addition to the quantum computer, looks to be within reach.
Quantum technologies are on the verge of transforming our planet.
In order to truly appreciate them, we must first comprehend how physicists have learnt to characterize the world of atoms. We'll need to go further into the strange realm of quantum physics for this aim.
~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan
You may also want to read more about Quantum Computing here.
