Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching and the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen have succeeded in transferring a quantum state of light to a material object - an ensemble of atoms. The concept of quantum teleportation - the disembodied complete transfer of the state of a quantum system to any other place - was first experimentally realised between two different light beams. Later it became also possible to transfer the properties of a stored ion to another object of the same kind. A team of scientist headed by Prof. Ignacio Cirac at MPQ and by...