China has successfully performed underwater quantum teleportation for the first time

Once again, Chinese researchers prove they are leading the quantum communication race.

Chinese researchers have just succeeded in sending quantum information between two tangled particles through the sea environment. This test also marks the first time we can perform quantum communication underwater.

In the experiment to determine whether this was feasible, the information was transferred a distance of 3.3 meters in a brine tank. Based on this success, the researchers believe that the technique could be used to transmit encrypted information, unable to be hacked over a distance of 900 meters under normal seawater conditions.

Information was transferred a distance of 3.3 meters in a saltwater tank.

This has great significance, because quantum communication, also known as quantum teleportation, promises us an extremely secure way of communicating, with the help of something. We are still studying physics. Currently, it is probably the most secure way to encrypt messages.

This test is based on the idea of ​​quantum entanglement, a strange phenomenon called Einstein's "bizarre phenomenon from afar". Basically, quantum entanglement means that two matter particles are connected in some way, anything that happens to the A particle will affect the same particle B, regardless of how far apart they are. how - from the alley to the end of the alley, or between the two distant universe. Thanks to quantum entanglement, we will transmit the information by making a particle spin according to certain rules and making the other particle follow.

By this method, scientists can 'move' information across a large path safely, having previously had successful tests with fiber optics and quantum displacement in Space space. , from Earth to satellites and vice versa.

We can 'move' information across a large distance safely with this method.

But no one has done that in a water environment, an environment that anything that passes through it is dispersed. In this first successful and successful test, researchers at Shanghai Jiaotong University took seawater, filling a 3 meter tank.

They created a pair of tangled photons by firing a ray of light through a crystal. No matter how polarized a photon is, the photon paired with it automatically has the opposite polarity. Two photons in one pair were placed at the ends of the seawater tank, and testing showed that two photons could transmit the signal to each other. Information is transmitted to 98% accurately.

'The results we obtained confirm the feasibility of underwater quantum communication , which is the first step in building an underwater quantum communication network , ' the researchers said.

This experiment has proved the feasibility of quantum information transmission underwater.

More tests are still needed: other research teams must replicate this test; Does it work at a longer distance? Does it work in a natural environment? The team in China estimates the maximum achievable distance will be 885 meters. However, another team reported that according to their calculations, perhaps the maximum is only 120 meters.

'Because seawater absorbs light, it is difficult to extend the distance , ' says Jeffrey Uhlmann, a physicist at the University of Missouri, Columbia.

As mentioned above, many more tests need to be done, this research is only the initial success. Success is still successful, and most importantly it has proved the feasibility of quantum information transmission underwater. This is indeed a necessary impulse to push the quantum limit further.