TL;DR
Get the latest gadgets delivered free — and shop member deals
- Fast, free delivery on millions of items
- Access to Prime Big Deal Days deals on October 6–7
- Prime Video, Amazon Music and more included
Charles Black, director of Brookhaven National Laboratory’s C2QA, is leading research into superconducting materials and manufacturing approaches for quantum hardware. The center reports transmon qubit lifetimes exceeding one millisecond, while scalable production and fault-tolerant systems remain longer-term challenges.
Charles Black, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage at Brookhaven National Laboratory, is leading research into superconducting materials and manufacturing methods intended to support scalable quantum computers. The center reports that its researchers achieved transmon qubit lifetimes exceeding one millisecond, while work to build hardware that can be manufactured at scale remains an open challenge.
C2QA brings together 28 institutions from national laboratories, universities and industry. The center launched in 2020 and is led by Brookhaven. Black became its director in June 2025; he also serves as deputy associate laboratory director for Brookhaven’s Energy and Photon Sciences Directorate.
One research effort has examined whether the materials used in superconducting transmon qubits limit their performance. Researchers from Princeton University built qubits using tantalum rather than aluminum and niobium. The source report says tantalum has fewer oxidation states suspected of harming performance. Using characterization facilities at Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials and National Synchrotron Light Source II, researchers studied how surface oxidation affects qubits.
The center reports that this work produced transmon qubits with lifetimes exceeding one millisecond, which the report describes as the longest ever reported. That record claim is attributed to the source; the material provided does not include a publication citation or independent assessment. C2QA is also pursuing devices made with silicon-compatible materials, drawing on Black’s prior work on semiconductor devices and manufacturing at IBM.
Materials and Manufacturing Shape Scale
Improving an individual qubit’s lifetime can help researchers address one constraint on quantum operations, but it does not by itself establish that a useful, fault-tolerant computer can be built. C2QA’s work links qubit performance with the practical question of how to produce many consistent devices.
Manufacturing methods compatible with existing semiconductor capabilities could make it easier to move beyond laboratory-scale hardware. That possibility is a research direction, not a demonstrated production outcome: the report describes the center’s pursuit of such devices, while leaving the scale and timeline for manufacturing unresolved.
From Nanomaterials to Quantum Devices
Black earned a doctorate at Harvard, where he worked with superconducting materials in fundamental physics research. He joined Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials in 2006, became its director in 2016 and held that position until 2025. From 1996 to 2006, he worked at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center on polymer self-assembly for semiconductor devices.
C2QA began in 2020, bringing physicists and materials researchers together to investigate the limits of superconducting qubits. Its tantalum effort reflects that approach: measure how a material’s surface properties relate to device performance, then consider whether the material and its fabrication can support larger systems.
““I feel like I’ve come full circle.””
— Charles Black, C2QA director
Scaling Beyond Qubit Lifetimes
The source report does not specify how the reported one-millisecond-plus lifetimes were independently evaluated, nor does it provide experimental details or a cited paper in the supplied material. It also does not establish that tantalum alone caused the reported performance, or that the result will translate directly into larger systems.
How quickly C2QA’s silicon-compatible manufacturing work could yield repeatable, large-scale quantum hardware is not stated. The report gives no production target, schedule or measure of progress toward a fault-tolerant system. Those outcomes remain distinct from the qubit result described.
C2QA’s Next Research Steps
C2QA’s stated work continues along two connected paths: investigating materials and surface oxidation that affect qubit performance, and developing quantum devices compatible with established manufacturing capabilities. Further published results would clarify whether the tantalum findings can be reproduced and applied in more complex hardware.
The supplied report does not announce a next milestone or date. For now, the center’s longer-term test is whether improved components and manufacturable designs can contribute to scalable, fault-tolerant quantum systems.
Key Questions
Who is Charles Black?
Charles Black is director of Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage. He previously led Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials and worked on semiconductor devices at IBM.
What is C2QA researching?
C2QA brings together researchers from 28 institutions to study quantum computing challenges, including superconducting materials, qubit performance and hardware architectures and manufacturing approaches for scalable systems.
What did the tantalum research report?
The report says C2QA researchers studied tantalum transmon qubits and surface oxidation, and achieved qubit lifetimes of more than one millisecond. The supplied source material does not include a paper citation or independent evaluation of its record claim.
Does the reported result mean scalable quantum computers are ready?
No. Longer qubit lifetimes are one research result. The report describes scalable manufacturing and fault-tolerant quantum systems as challenges the center is working to address; it does not say those systems have been achieved.
Source: rss
Fall Picks
fall essentials
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
