Quantum teleportation is a technique for transferring quantum information from a sender at one location to a receiver some distance away. While teleportation is commonly portrayed in science fiction as a means to transfer physical objects from one location to the next, quantum teleportation only transfers quantum information. Moreover, the sender may not know the location of the recipient, and does not know which particular quantum state will be transferred.
One of the first scientific articles to investigate quantum teleportation is "Teleporting an Unknown Quantum State via Dual Classical and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Channels" published by C. H. Bennett, G. Brassard, C. Crépeau, R. Jozsa, A. Peres, and W. K. Wootters in 1993, in which they used dual communication methods to send/receive quantum information. It was experimentally realized in 1997 by two research groups, led by Sandu Popescu and Anton Zeilinger, respectively.Experimental determinations of quantum teleportation have been made in information content - including photons, atoms, electrons, and superconducting circuits - as well as distance with 1,400 km (870 mi) being the longest distance of successful teleportation by the group of Jian-Wei Pan using the Micius satellite for space-based quantum teleportation.
Challenges faced in quantum teleportation include the no-cloning theorem which sets the limitation that creating an exact copy of a quantum state is impossible, the no-deleting theorem that states that quantum information cannot be destroyed, the size of the information teleported, the amount of quantum information the sender or receiver has before teleportation, and noise that the teleportation system has within its circuitry.