Physicists in the US have teleported information between distant ions for the first time. The breakthrough is a significant milestone in the quest for a workable quantum computer, say the researchers.
Researchers in the US claim to have created the first small-scale device that can perform all the steps needed for large-scale quantum computation. Although each of the individual steps has been demonstrated previously, this new ion-based device can do them all – without losing significant amounts of data in the process. It has been developed by physicists at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colorado, who say it a key step towards a practical quantum computer.