Quantum teleportation across a metropolitan fibre network

• Published in: Nature photonics Vol. 10; no. 10; pp. 676 - 680
• Main Authors: Valivarthi, Raju, Puigibert, Marcelli Grimau, Zhou, Qiang, Aguilar, Gabriel H, Verma, Varun B, Marsili, Francesco, Shaw, Matthew D, Nam, Sae Woo, Oblak, Daniel, Tittel, Wolfgang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group 01.10.2016
• Subjects: Fibre; Internet; Networks; Photonics; Photons; Quantum mechanics; Quantum teleportation; Telecommunications; Wavelengths; Canada; California; Calgary Alberta Canada; United States > US
• ISSN: 1749-4885; 1749-4893
• DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2016.180

If a photon interacts with a member of an entangled photon pair via a Bell-state measurement (BSM), its state is teleported over principally arbitrary distances onto the pair's second member. Since 1997, this puzzling prediction of quantum mechanics has been demonstrated many times. However, with two exceptions, only the photon that received the teleported state, if any, travelled far, while the photons partaking in the BSM were always measured close to where they were created. Here, using the Calgary fibre network, we report quantum teleportation from a telecom photon at 1,532nm wavelength, interacting with another telecom photon after both have travelled several kilometres and over a combined beeline distance of 8.2km, onto a photon at 795nm wavelength. This improves the distance over which teleportation takes place to 6.2km. Our demonstration establishes an important requirement for quantum repeater-based communications and constitutes a milestone towards a global quantum internet.