Quantum computing is something of a brass ring in the field – ultra-fast computers that run on very little energy. Unfortunately, one barrier has been the accuracy of qubits, the building blocks that process quantum data. Thankfully, two teams of scientists from UNSW in Australia may have cracked the code – they’ve developed two different qubits using silicon that process data with an accuracy of 99%.

“For quantum computing to become a reality we need to operate the bits with very low error rates,” says Scientia Professor Andrew Dzurak, who is Director of the Australian National Fabrication Facility at UNSW, where the devices were made. “We’ve now come up with two parallel pathways for building a quantum computer in silicon, each of which shows this super accuracy,” adds Associate Professor Andrea Morello from UNSW’s School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications.

The research deals with two types of quibits – one artificial, one natural. Similar to the silicon MOSFTETs used in everyday consumer electronics, the “artificial atom” quibit made of silicon has achieved remarkable accuracy. Meanwhile, another team worked to push the “natural” phosphorus atom qubit (which is actually two qubits, an electon and a nucleus) to new heights: They’ve achieved an accuracy rate of 99.99%.

Dzurak explains that, “even though methods to correct errors do exist, their effectiveness is only guaranteed if the errors occur less than 1% of the time. Our experiments are among the first in solid-state, and the first-ever in silicon, to fulfill this requirement.”

The accuracy is achieved by using extremely pure silicon (the silicon-28 isotope, specifically) to sheath the quibits. It’s neither magnetic nor disturbing to the qubit. Morello’s research team also established a world-record “coherence time” for a single quantum bit held in solid state. “Coherence time is a measure of how long you can preserve quantum information before it’s lost,” Morello says. The longer the coherence time, the easier it becomes to perform long sequences of operations, and therefore more complex calculations.

The record was set using the phosphorus nucleus, and the information was held for over 30 seconds. That’s an especially long time in the field of quantum computing.

Check out a video of the team in action (as well as a more detailed explanation) here.