Researchers in Turin, Italy have, for the first time, demonstrated quantum illumination in the lab, a method for improving the sensitivity of radar and other methods of detecting distant objects -- a technique proposed theoretically in 2008 by SFI Science Board member and External Professor Seth Lloyd. Their paper appears in the journal Nature.
By entangling a photon beam with a reference beam so that each photon in one beam is matched to a photon in the other, Lloyd proposed in 2008, scientists would be able to tell the difference between signal photons and noise photons, which would lack correlated twins. This, he suggested, would allow researchers to detect the faint evidence of objects normally obscured by noise. Lloyd's theoretical result surprised scientists, who previously believed noise would normally destroy quantum effects.
“It’s a good experiment, and it’s a good first start in trying to demonstrate the effect,” said Lloyd of the successful experiment.
Read the article in Nature (April 5, 2013)