Beam Me Up Scotty

Posted by ryan at 05:01 PM in science . | 4 Comments

Scientists have performed the teleportation of atoms without using a physical link for the first time. While it might not bring the away team back to the ship safely, the technology may offer quite a performance boost to quantum computers.

The landmark experiments are being viewed as a major advance in the quest to achieve ultra-fast computers, inside which teleportation could provide a form of invisible "quantum wiring".

These machines would be able to handle far bigger and more complex loads than today's super-computers, and at many times their speed.

"In a quantum computer it's straightforward enough to move quantum information around by simply moving the qubits, but you might want to do things very quickly, so you could use teleportation instead," said Nist's Dr David Wineland.