Quantum Communication Speeds Up Nearly Five Times express
Regular quantum communication is like a postal service that sends letters strictly one at a time. If the route is long, you have to wait an indecently long time for a reply. Physicists sped up the process by dispatching ten 'postal trucks' — light pulses — into a single optical fiber, but in different time windows. In the experiment, two ions (charged atoms) in traps connected by a 1.2 km cable each received ten photons per cycle. This allowed them to create entanglement 4.59 times faster, with 95.9% accuracy.
This approach is like a construction set: you can add new ion nodes, and the network will speed up, bringing us closer to secure communication and distributed computing.
Without the ten-channel trick, entangling two charged atoms over a kilometer-long fiber would take minutes — about as long as it takes to brew a cup of coffee. Now it all happens in the time it takes you to blink.
The idea of instantaneous communication via entanglement underpins the plot of Liu Cixin's novel 'Through the Stars', where the heroes attempt to communicate with deep space without delay.