A quantum bit based on a vibrating carbon nanotube and a pair of quantum dots could be unusually resistant to noise. Although the new nanomechanical qubit is currently at the proposal stage, calculations by Fabio Pistolesi of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) at the University of Bordeaux and colleagues in the US and Spain indicate that its so-called “decoherence time” – a measure of how long fragile quantum information can survive in a noisy environment – would be remarkably long, making it an attractive platform for quantum computing.

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