U.S. Led Research Building Long-distance Quantum Network Foundation
Researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory have made strides in putting together a “true quantum internet.” The below excerpts are from a detailed piece about the team’s work. Well worth the read; covers many aspects of the network from technology and hardware to experimentation. Qubit.
Building a Network for Long-Distance Quantum Communication
Excerpts and salient points ~
+ “We’re now at the point where we have all of the components necessary for a quantum network and are ready to start building one and testing its performance for different communication tasks,” said Figueroa, who is also the scientific lead at the small business Qunnect, which is developing and commercializing the room-temperature quantum memories.
Brookhaven Lab and Stony Brook University are developing a quantum networking testbed to explore the creation of a quantum internet
+ In principle, there should be no maximum distance over which teleportation can occur. However, when entangled photons travel in the atmosphere or inside optical fibers, entanglement can be lost before the photons reach their final destination. Thus, the distance over which entanglement can be measured or teleportation performed has been limited. Physicists in China recently transmitted entangled photons between ground stations and a satellite in orbit separated by a record-breaking distance of nearly 900 miles.
+ At Brookhaven, the scientists will construct an entangled photon source that will allow them to interface with the atoms and feed them into the large network of optical components. For their experiments, they will use rubidium atoms to store photons. “Rubidium atoms only have one electron in their outer core, so the energy levels are easily accessible for our experiments,” explained Figueroa.
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