A team has observed the teleportation transition in surface codes running on a superconducting quantum processor, a phenomenon that links quantum error correction with the teleportation of logical states. The work frames teleportation as a controllable order transition within surface-code schemes, the most widespread architecture for protecting quantum information from noise.

The surface code encodes a logical qubit in a set of physical qubits through local stabilisation operations. Earlier work had established its error tolerance and its compatibility with superconducting hardware, but the critical behaviour associated with teleporting states between regions of the code had not been characterised experimentally on this type of processor.

The implementation was carried out on a superconducting quantum processor, where surface-code states were prepared and gate and measurement sequences were applied to transfer logical information between regions of the chip. Controlling the circuit parameters allows the transition to be swept and the regime in which teleportation of the logical state becomes efficient to be located.

The significance of the result lies in linking error correction with the teleportation of logical information, a basic resource for quantum networks and for communication between modules of a scalable quantum processor. Understanding where the transition occurs helps in designing state-transfer protocols that are more robust against noise.