Nonlocal memory effects allow perfect teleportation with mixed states

One of the most striking consequences of quantum physics is quantum teleportation – the possibility to transfer quantum states over arbitrary distances. Since its theoretical introduction, teleportation has been demonstrated experimentally up to the distance of 143 km. In the original proposal two parties share a maximally entangled quantum state acting as a resource for the teleportation task. If, however, the state is influenced by decoherence, perfect teleportation can no longer be accomplished. Therefore, one of the current major challenges in accomplishing teleportation over long distances is to overcome the limitations imposed by decoherence and the subsequent mixedness of the resource state. Here we show that, in the presence of nonlocal memory effects, perfect quantum teleportation can be achieved even with mixed photon polarisation states. Our results imply that memory effects can be exploited in harnessing noisy quantum systems for quantum communication and that non-Markovianity is a resource for quantum information tasks.