China's Great Wall holds the key to quantum future: THE Great Wall of China is poised to play its part in pushing back the boundaries of quantum cryptography. Later this year a Chinese team, which has just broken the record for transmitting entangled particles, will test the feasibility of satellite-based quantum communication using the wall.

The Great Wall's new role was revealed after Jian-Wei Pan of the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei and his colleagues successfully transmitted 'entangled' photons through more than 7 kilometres of the Earth's turbulent lower atmosphere without losing the photons' fragile quantum properties.

"In the autumn we will test transmission of entangled photons between receivers 20 kilometres apart on the Great Wall," he says. "We used to use light from fires on the Great Wall to signal invasions, now we are going to signal the future."


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