Quantum teleportation, or entanglement-assisted teleportation, is a process by which a qubit (the basic unit of quantum information) can be transmitted exactly (in principle) from one location to another, without the qubit being transmitted through the intervening space. It is useful for quantum information processing, however it does not immediately transmit classical information, and therefore cannot be used for communication at superluminal (faster than light) speed. Quantum teleportation is unrelated to the common term teleportation - it does not transport the system itself, and does not concern rearranging particles to copy the form of an object.
The seminal paper first expounding the idea was published by Charles Bennett and coauthors in 1993. It was first confirmed experimentally in 1997 by a group in Innsbruck and has subsequently been shown to work over distances of up to 16 kilometers.
---------------------------------------------------------
