Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Deterministic quantum teleportation with atoms

Nature volume 429, pages 734–737 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

Teleportation of a quantum state encompasses the complete transfer of information from one particle to another. The complete specification of the quantum state of a system generally requires an infinite amount of information, even for simple two-level systems (qubits). Moreover, the principles of quantum mechanics dictate that any measurement on a system immediately alters its state, while yielding at most one bit of information. The transfer of a state from one system to another (by performing measurements on the first and operations on the second) might therefore appear impossible. However, it has been shown1 that the entangling properties of quantum mechanics, in combination with classical communication, allow quantum-state teleportation to be performed. Teleportation using pairs of entangled photons has been demonstrated2,3,4,5,6, but such techniques are probabilistic, requiring post-selection of measured photons. Here, we report deterministic quantum-state teleportation between a pair of trapped calcium ions. Following closely the original proposal1, we create a highly entangled pair of ions and perform a complete Bell-state measurement involving one ion from this pair and a third source ion. State reconstruction conditioned on this measurement is then performed on the other half of the entangled pair. The measured fidelity is 75%, demonstrating unequivocally the quantum nature of the process.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Teleportation from ion 1 to ion 3. A Bell state of ions 2 and 3 is prepared as a resource.
Figure 2: Result of the teleportation.
Figure 3: Fidelity of teleportation as a function of the relative phase φ of the reconstruction and analysing pulses (see Table 1).

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Bennett, C. H. et al. Teleporting an unknown quantum state via dual classical and EPR channels. Phys. Rev. Lett. 70, 1895–1899 (1993)

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Bouwmeester, D. et al. Experimental quantum teleportation. Nature 390, 575–579 (1997)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Boschi, D., Branca, S., DeMartini, F., Hardy, L. & Popescu, S. Experimental realization of teleporting an unknown pure quantum state via dual classical and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen channels. Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 1121–1125 (1998)

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Pan, J.-W., Daniell, M., Gasparoni, S., Weihs, G. & Zeilinger, A. Experimental demonstration of four-photon entanglement and high-fidelity teleportation. Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 4435–4438 (2001)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Marcikic, I., de Riedmatten, H., Tittel, W., Zbinden, H. & Gisin, N. Long-distance teleportation of qubits at telecommunication wavelengths. Nature 421, 509–513 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Fattal, D., Diamanti, E., Inoue, K. & Yamamoto, Y. Quantum teleportation with a quantum dot single photon source. Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 037904 (2004)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Wootters, W. K. & Zurek, W. H. A single quantum cannot be cloned. Nature 299, 802–803 (1982)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Nielsen, M. A. & Chuang, I. J. Quantum Computation and Quantum Information (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2000)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  9. Gottesman, D. & Chuang, I. L. Demonstrating the viability of universal quantum computation using teleportation and single-qubit operations. Nature 402, 390–393 (1999)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Furusawa, A. et al. Unconditional quantum teleportation. Science 282, 706–709 (1998)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Nielsen, M. A., Knill, E. & Laflamme, R. Complete quantum teleportation using nuclear magnetic resonance. Nature 396, 52–55 (1998)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Barrett, M. D. et al. Quantum teleportation with atomic qubits. Nature (this issue)

  13. Schmidt-Kaler, F. et al. How to realize a universal quantum gate with trapped ions. Appl. Phys. B 77, 789–796 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Roos, C. F. et al. Bell states of atoms with ultra long lifetimes and their tomographic state analysis. Phys. Rev. Lett. (in the press) Preprint at〈 http://arXiv.org/abs/physics/0307210〉 (2003)

  15. Massar, S. & Popescu, S. Optimal extraction of information from finite quantum ensembles. Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 1259–1263 (1995)

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Gisin, N. Nonlocality criteria for quantum teleportation. Phys. Lett. A 210, 157–159 (1996)

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Kielpinski, D., Monroe, C. & Wineland, D. J. Architecture for a large-scale ion-trap quantum computer. Nature 417, 709–711 (2002)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Gulde, S. et al. Implementation of the Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm on an ion-trap quantum computer. Nature 412, 48–50 (2003)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  19. Hahn, E. L. Spin Echoes. Phys. Rev. 80, 580–594 (1950)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank H. Briegel and P. Zoller for a critical reading of the manuscript. We gratefully acknowledge support by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), by the European Commission (QUEST, QUBITS and QGATES networks), by the Institut für Quanteninformation, and by the Los Alamos LDRD Program. This material is based upon work supported in part by the US Army Research Office. H.H is funded by the Marie-Curie program of the European Union.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Experimentalphysik, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstraße 25, A-6020, Innsbruck, Austria

    M. Riebe, H. Häffner, C. F. Roos, W. Hänsel, J. Benhelm, G. P. T. Lancaster, T. W. Körber, C. Becher, F. Schmidt-Kaler & R. Blatt

  2. Theoretical Division T-4, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA

    D. F. V. James

  3. Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Technikerstraße 25, A-6020, Innsbruck, Austria

    R. Blatt

Authors
  1. M. Riebe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. H. Häffner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. C. F. Roos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. W. Hänsel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. J. Benhelm
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. G. P. T. Lancaster
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. T. W. Körber
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. C. Becher
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. F. Schmidt-Kaler
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. D. F. V. James
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. R. Blatt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to R. Blatt.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Riebe, M., Häffner, H., Roos, C. et al. Deterministic quantum teleportation with atoms. Nature 429, 734–737 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02570

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02570

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing