Teleportation – the disembodiment of an object in one location and reconstruction in a different location in a split second – has been successfully carried out in a physics lab in Australia.
Leading Physicist Dr Ping Koy Lam, 34, and a team of researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra have teleported a laser beam.
The achievement confirms in practice the theory that teleportation is possible. It also means that, in theory, it is possible to teleport solid objects. However, a laser beam is the only thing that can be teleported at this stage. The announcement was made at ANU today.
Teleportation is one of the hottest topics among physicists working in quantum mechanics. Some 40 labs around the world are currently trying to teleport a laser beam, but have not yet succeeded. This phenomenon was observed by one lab at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) but the ANU experiment extends the previous results and shows greater reliability.
The results of Australia’s teleportation project will be presented at an international conference on quantum electronics in Moscow next week.
Teleportation has major applications in quantum computing, cryptography and communications, including:
The Australian Research Council (ARC) has provided Dr Lam with about $2 million in funding since 1998. This includes a $1.1 million Discovery grant from the ARC in January 2002. The ANU also provided extensive support, including infrastructure and a pool of talented researchers and students.
The teleportation program is led by Dr Lam along with Prof. Hans Bachor and Dr Timothy Ralph. This Australian program included scientists from Germany, France, Denmark, China and New Zealand.
The Federal Minister for Science, Peter McGauran, congratulated Dr Lam and the team on an outstanding achievement. “Your work establishes Australia and The Australian National University as the world leader in this frontier science. Its application has exciting potential for major economic and social benefits for all Australians.”
The CEO of the Australian Research Council Professor Vicki Sara said: “This achievement enhances Australia’s status as a centre of world-leading research. It has the potential to provide significant economic and social benefits and highlights the importance of basic research to Australia’s competitiveness in the global knowledge economy.”
