Two studies recently published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology reveal the development of the first silicon quantum technology capable of holding data at over 99 percent accuracy, paving the way to create the building blocks necessary for transistor-based quantum computers.

According to PC Magazine, quantum computing can provide more powerful methods of computing performance orders, instant transmission of messages from great distances, and more secure data transfer between computing nodes. Researchers of the studies, composed of a team of Australian scientists, utilized two separate methods for creating a quantum bit (also known as a qubit), which provides the storage of information in a quantum computer.

“We have demonstrated that with silicon qubit we can have the accuracy needed to build a real quantum computer,” said co-author Andrew Dzurak of the University of New South Wales, according to Discovery News.

In one method, the team of researchers built on previous research of using phosphorous atoms as qubits, previously only achieving 50 percent accuracy using phosphorus atoms in silicon. “In natural silicon each atom also has its own spin which affects the phosphorous atom, which is why the accuracy was only 50 percent,” said Dzurak. “We solved the problem by removing all the silicon 29 isotopes that have magnetic spin leaving only silicon 28, which has no magnetic spin to influence the phosphorous, giving us an accuracy of 99.99 percent.”

In the second method, the team turned a silicon transistor into an artificial atom qubit, resulting in an accuracy of 99.6 percent. “What we’ve done is make a silicon transistor with just one electron trapped in that transistor,” said Dzurak. “This lets us use exactly the same sort of transistor that we use in computer chips and operate it as a qubit, opening the potential to mass-produce this technology using the same sort of equipment used for chip manufacturing.”

PC Magazine reports that these discoveries build upon a number of breakthroughs for quantum computing in recent years, including the achievement of true quantum teleportation and additional quantum teleportation involving electric currents and photons.