Lighting the Way to a Quantum Computer

For researchers working to build a quantum computer, speed is of the essence. The bits of quantum data that scientists create last just billionths of a second, or nanoseconds. That's too short to allow researchers to do any meaningful computation. But a group of California and Pennsylvania researchers may have found a way to beat the time crunch. Their work takes a small but important step toward creating a machine that can carry out in seconds calculations that would take eons on even the most sophisticated supercomputer.