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Researchers Demonstrate Teleportation Using On-Demand Photons From Quantum Dots
A team of researchers from Austria, Italy and Sweden has successfully demonstrated teleportation using on-demand photons from quantum dots. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group explains how they accomplished this feat and how it applies to future quantum communications networks. Scientists and many others are very interested in developing truly quantum communications networks -- it is believed that such networks will be safe from hacking or eavesdropping due to their very nature. But, as the researchers with this new effort point out, there are still some problems standing in the way. One of these is the difficulty in amplifying quantum signals. One way to get around this problem, they note, is to generate photons on-demand as part of a quantum repeater -- this helps to effectively handle the high clock rates. In this new effort, they have done just that, using semiconductor quantum dots.
Prior work surrounding the possibility of using semiconductor quantum dots has shown that it is a feasible way to demonstrate teleportation, but only under certain conditions, none of which allowed for on-demand applications. Because of that, they have not been considered a push-button technology. In this new effort, the researchers overcame this problem by creating quantum dots that were highly symmetrical using an etching method to create the hole pairs in which the quantum dots develop. The process they used was called a XX (biexciton)--X (exciton) cascade. They then employed a dual-pulsed excitation scheme to populate the desired XX state (after two pairs shed photons, they retained their entanglement). Doing so allowed for the production of on-demand single photons suitable for use in teleportation. The dual pulsed excitation scheme was critical to the process, the team notes, because it minimized re-excitation. |
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| Steve Jobs |
You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. |
| Drew Gilpin Faust |
As a scholar, you don't want to repeat yourself, ever. You're supposed to say it once, publish it, and then it's published, and you don't say it again. If someone comes and gives a scholarly paper about something they've already published, that's just terrible. As a university president, you have to say the same thing over and over and over. |