Successful Teleportation of the Qutrit May Lead to Secure Communications in Future

(ScientificAmerican) Researchers have teleported a qutrit, a tripartite unit of quantum information. These proof-of-concept experiments demonstrate that qutrits, which can carry more information and have greater resistance to noise than qubits, may be used in future quantum networks.
Chinese physicist Guang-Can Guo and his colleagues at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) reported their results on April 28. On June 24 a second team, an international collaboration headed by Anton Zeilinger of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and Jian-Wei Pan of USTC, reported its results.
To create their qutrits, both teams used the triple-branching path of a photon, expressed in carefully orchestrated optical systems of lasers, beam splitters and barium borate crystals.
In quantum teleportation, the states of two entangled particles are what is transported—for instance, the spin of an electron. Even when far apart, entangled particles share a mysterious connection; in the case of two entangled electrons, whatever happens to one’s spin influences that of the other, instantaneously.
Quantum teleportation may have important utility for secure communications in the future, and much of the research is funded with cybersecurity applications in mind.