More stable qubits in perfectly normal silicon
The power of future quantum computers stems from the use of qubits, or quantum bits, which do not have to be either 0 or 1, but can also be 0 and 1 at the same time. It is not yet clear on which technology these qubits in quantum computers will be based, but qubits based on electron spins are looking more and more promising. It was thought that these could only be produced in the expensive semiconductor material gallium arsenide, but researchers have now discovered that the more common material silicon, the basic material of modern computer chips, is even better. Researchers from Delft, the University of Wisconsin and Ames Laboratory, led by Prof. Lieven Vandersypen of TU Delft's QuTech discovered that the stability of qubits could be maintained 100 times more effectively in silicon than in gallium arsenide.