Chinese scientists `smash quantum’ entanglement record
20 Jun 2017
Chinese scientists have successfully transmitted entangled photons between suborbital space and earth. The development, reported in the 16 June issue of Science, could lead to improvements in the speed and security of global telecommunications, according to commentators.
The entanglement phenomenon ''links'' particles in such a way that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described separately. In the entangled state, the state of one entangled partner can be known if we know the state of the other particle. This means particles can instantly communicate with each other, no matter how far apart they are separated, which could be harnessed for instantaneous communication anywhere around the world or possibly beyond. Even Einstein had not been able to fully understand entanglement, and called it "spooky action at a distance."
In the Science study, Jian-Wei Pan and colleagues at the University of Science and Technology of China report the successful transmission of entangled photons by satellite across a distance of roughly 1,200 kilometers, which smashed the earlier quantum entanglement record of 100 kilometers.
According to experts, besides others applications, quantum entanglement could offer a more secure means of communication. For instance, any attempt to "eavesdrop" on a quantum communication line, would disrupt the state of the particles, alerting users that the channel had been compromised.
The development is seen as the next step in creating an internet that cannot be hacked or compromised. Quantum networking will allow data transfer even as it takes the 'signal' out of sending data, based on a complex concept. As there is no signal transmission, hackers would not be able to steal data as the source and destination in quantum networking are one and the same.
The new quantum internet will work on entangled photon pairs that mirror one another. The sender will keep one of the entangled photons, and then anything done to the photon will happen instantly to the other person's photon.