TELEPORTATION IN SCIENCE FICTION Fictional examples of teleportation typically involve transferring atoms from one place to another without any movement of the atoms in between. The transporter in Star Trek converted atoms into energy, beamed the energy to a different location and then converted it back into atoms.

TELEPORTATION IN THE LAB Quantum teleportation does not move atoms, but it can transfer information about the state of an atom or particle from one place to another without that information moving in between.

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

ENTANGLEMENT Researchers use laser light to “entangle” two electrons trapped inside small synthetic diamonds. A change made to one electron will instantaneously affect the other electron, even if it is far away.

Quantum entanglement

Electron

Electron

INFORMATION

ENCODING The piece of information to be teleported is encoded in a nearby nitrogen atom that is also trapped inside the diamond crystal.

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Nitrogen atom

MEASUREMENT

MEASUREMENT

MEASUREMENT Researchers measure the state of the atom and its neighboring electron and send the measurement to the distant location. The original information is destroyed but not transmitted, so it is safe from interception or eavesdropping.

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Information destroyed

QUANTUM TELEPORTATION The measurements are used to determine what type of manipulation should be performed on the distant entangled electron to recreate the encoded information. The information is considered “teleported” because it did not travel the distance between the two locations.

MANIPULATION

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