Researchers at QuTech in Delft have succeeded in generating quantum entanglement between two quantum chips faster than the entanglement is lost. Via a novel smart entanglement protocol and careful protection of the entanglement, the scientists led by Prof. Ronald Hanson are the first in the world to deliver such a quantum link on demand. This opens the door to connect multiple quantum nodes and create the very first quantum network in the world. Their results are published in Nature.
By exploiting the power of quantum entanglement, it is theoretically possible to build a quantum internet invulnerable to eavesdropping. However, the realization of such a quantum network is a real challenge—it is necessary to create entanglement reliably on demand, and maintain it long enough to pass the entangled information to the next node. So far, this has been beyond the capabilities of quantum experiments.
Scientists at QuTech in Delft have are now the first to experimentally generate entanglement over a distance of two metres in a fraction of a second, on demand, and theoretically maintain this entanglement long enough to enable entanglement to a third node. “The challenge is now to be the first to create a network of multiple entangled nodes—the first version of a quantum internet,” professor Hanson says.
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