Tiny sound waves could help solve a major quantum computing problem
Science News from research organizations Tiny sound waves could help solve a major quantum computing problem Harvard researchers used microscopic sound waves to protect quantum information, helping a qubit preserve its fragile state about three times longer. Date: September 12, 2026 Source: Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Summary: Researchers at Harvard have demonstrated a way to protect quantum information using microscopic sound waves. By continuously surrounding a diamond-based qubit with mechanical vibrations, they extended its coherence time by roughly threefold. The same phonons could eventually both transmit and protect quantum information, opening the door to compact sound-based quantum networks on chips. Share: Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIN Email FULL STORY Illustration of a silicon-vacancy center in a diamond crystal lattice. Credit: Doug Quade Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have demonstrated a new way to protect delicate quantum information using mechanical vibrations, essentially microscopic sound waves. The advance, developed in the lab of Marko Lončar, Tiantsai Lin Professor of Electrical Engineering, could support the development of compact quantum networks built directly onto chips. It may also help enable hybrid quantum systems that combine several different kinds of quantum bits, or qubits. The findings are published in Nature Physics. The experiments were led by Eliza Cornell, a recent Ph.D. graduate from the Lončar lab who is now a postdoctoral researcher at Boston University, and Zhujing Xu, a former postdoctoral scholar in Lončar's group. Using Sound to Carry Quantum Information One promising approach to quantum networking uses the spin of an electron, associated with impurity in diamond, to store quantum information. Tiny packets of mechanical vibration called phonons can then serve as carriers that move information between qubit nodes. The L
