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We have published a Nature article where we report teleportation from light to atoms. Read more below.

From the left Rasmus Olsson, Jacob Sherson, Hannah Krauter, and Eugene Polzik.

In the experiment information is transferred fra point A to B. The to locations are approximately one metre apart and are not connected in any way.

B is an isolated glass cell contaning a vapour of Caesium atoms. One then sends a beam of light through the gas whereby the two systems (atoms and light) $become entangled. This entanglement is a fundamental fenomenon in the microscopic quantum world (A quantum refers to an indivisible object of any sort, and in our case it refers to the atoms of our gas and the photons that make up our light). Being entangled means that they are connected by a quantum link that synchronises them.

The light is passed on to A, which contains no useful quantum information. At the same time A recieves a weak pulse of light containing the quantum information that we want to teleport. The information is conatined in the light wave. The wave amplitude gives the intensity of the light and the wavelength (phase) its colour. However, the two types of quantum information carried by the light pulse cannot be recorded simultaneously, hence it is not possible imediately to decifer the information.

As the two beams of light (one entangled with the cell at B and one with the quantum information) meet and are mixed A mesures them, but the information gained by the measurement is still not deciferable. The next step is for A to contact B and give B him the results of A's measurement on the light. Because of the quantum lnk that one of the measured beams had with the atoms at B it is possible for B to decifer the information and the result is that B now has the information teleported from the light.

"Teleportation is one of the most important building blocks of the quantum communication network of the future that will revolutionise communication with computers" says Eugene Polzik. "Information will not be coded and computed as bits of 0 and 1, but as quantum states, which can exist in superposition-states of 0, 1, 2 etc. simultanously. This means that they can hold much more information than conventional bits. Another improtant property is that information coded into quantum suerpositions is in principle absolutely secure", says Eugene Polzik.

The quantum teleportation that has been demonstrated at the Niels Bohr Institute is a crucial step towards the realisation of a comunications network based on teleportation.

This research was funded by the Danish National Research Foundation, by EU grants QUICOV, COVAQIAL.

Scientific journals:

• Jacob F. Sherson, Hanna Krauter, Rasmus K. Olsson, Brian Julsgaard, Klemens Hammerer, Ignacio Cirac and Eugene S. Polzik
  Quantum teleportation between light and matter,
  Nature443, 557(2006).
  
  
• Mikhail Lukin and Matthew Eisaman,
  Atomic physics: Quantum leap from light to atoms p512
  Nature (News and Views) 443, 513 (2006).
  
  

Webpages:

• cell experiment page

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