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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

For the first time, a team led by Innsbruck physicist Ben Lanyon has sent a light particle entangled with matter over 50 km of optical fiber. This paves the way for the practical use of quantum networks and sets a milestone for a future quantum internet.

The quantum internet promises absolutely tap-proof communication and powerful distributed sensor networks for new science and technology. However, because quantum information cannot be copied, it is not possible to send this information over a classical network.

In a nonlinear crystal illuminated by a strong laser the photon wavelength is converted to the optimal value for long-distance travel. Quantum information must be transmitted by quantum particles, and special interfaces are required for this. The Innsbruck-based experimental physicist Ben Lanyon, who was awarded the Austrian START Prize in 2015 for his research, is researching these important intersections of a future quantum Internet.

Now his team at the Department of Experimental Physics at the University of Innsbruck and at the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences has achieved a record for the transfer of quantum entanglement between matter and light. For the first time, a distance of 50 kilometers was covered using fiber optic cables.

"This is two orders of magnitude further than was previously possible and is a practical distance to start building inter-city quantum networks," says Ben Lanyon.

[...] With 100-kilometer node spacing now a possibility, one could therefore envisage building the world’s first intercity light-matter quantum network in the coming years: only a handful of trapped ion-systems would be required on the way to establish a quantum internet between Innsbruck and Vienna, for example.

[...] Light-matter entanglement over 50 km of optical fibre. V. Krutyanskiy , M. Meraner, J. Schupp, V. Krcmarsky, H. Hainzer and B. P. Lanyon. npj Quantum Information 2019 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41534-019-0186-3 (Open Access)

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