Compared to traditional communication methods, quantum communication has become a major direction for future communication development due to its ultra-high security. Previously, quantum communication that was often reported was based on the entanglement principle. Today, we will introduce a more peculiar form - counterfactual communication: quantum communication between two receivers without any particle transmission. This effect of transmitting quantum states without sending particles is also known as the quantum Zeno effect.

According to a recent report by the Physicist Organization Network, researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China have successfully achieved direct counterfactual quantum communication, transmitting a black and white bitmap from one location to another without sending any physical particles. This is the first time in the history of communication. This study was designed and experimented in collaboration with Chinese scientists from the Shanghai and Hefei campuses of the University of Science and Technology of China, as well as Tsinghua University, and successfully achieved counterfactual communication using nested quantum Zeno effects.

The quantum Zeno effect occurs when unstable quantum systems are repeatedly measured. In the quantum world, observing or measuring systems can cause changes in the system, and in this case, unstable particles will never decay when repeatedly observed. The quantum Zeno effect creates a highly probable system that is actually frozen. The research report was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.