Media Tip: Resurrecting niobium for quantum science

For the past 15 years, niobium has been considered a mediocre material for qubits, which are the carriers of quantum information. But now a group at Stanford University and the University of Chicago has demonstrated a way to create niobium-based qubits that rival the state-of-the-art for their class. By restructuring and reengineering how niobium is incorporated in a component called the Josephson junction, the group developed a qubit that could maintain information for 62 millionths of a second, 150 times longer than its best-performing niobium predecessors. Niobium is making a comeback.

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The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://​ener​gy​.gov/​s​c​ience.