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, named director of Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA) in June 2025, is applying decades of materials science and semiconductor experience to quantum computing. C2QA researchers have built superconducting tantalum transmon qubits with lifetimes exceeding one millisecond, described as the longest ever reported, and are pursuing silicon-compatible manufacturing for scalable quantum hardware.
Charles Black, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA) at Brookhaven National Laboratory, is leading a 28-institution research effort to solve the materials and manufacturing problems standing between today’s quantum computers and practical, scalable systems. According to a report published by The Quantum Insider on September 30, 2026, C2QA researchers have used alternative superconducting materials — including tantalum — to build superconducting transmon qubits with lifetimes exceeding one millisecond, described in the report as the longest ever reported.
Black was named C2QA director in June 2025, according to the report, which draws on a press release. C2QA is a National Quantum Information Science Research Center led by Brookhaven National Laboratory and spans 28 institutions across national laboratories, academia, and industry. The center’s stated mission is to deliver advances in materials science and modular system architectures that enable scalable, fault-tolerant quantum systems. Black also serves as deputy associate laboratory director for Brookhaven’s Energy and Photon Sciences Directorate.
The center’s materials work addresses a specific problem: after more than a decade of building superconducting transmon qubits from aluminum and niobium, qubit performance plateaued, prompting physicists to investigate whether the constituent superconducting materials themselves were the limiting factor. C2QA researchers at Princeton University began building qubits with tantalum, which has fewer of the oxidation states suspected of degrading qubit performance. Using characterization tools at Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials and the National Synchrotron Light Source II, the researchers studied how oxidation of tantalum’s surface affects performance, ultimately producing transmon qubits with lifetimes exceeding one millisecond, according to the report.
The report also highlights C2QA’s focus on manufacturing scalability. The center is pursuing quantum devices built with silicon-compatible materials that align with existing semiconductor manufacturing capabilities, an approach informed in part by Black’s earlier work at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center from 1996 to 2006, where he and collaborators pioneered polymer self-assembly techniques for semiconductor devices.
Why Materials Matter for Quantum Scale-Up
The reported qubit lifetime result matters because qubit coherence time — how long a qubit retains its quantum state — directly constrains how many operations a quantum computer can perform before errors accumulate. Longer-lived qubits reduce the burden on quantum error correction, which fault-tolerant quantum computing requires.
The tantalum work also illustrates a broader argument in the field: that hardware bottlenecks may be materials problems rather than architecture problems. Black drew a direct parallel to the history of microelectronics: early transistors used germanium, not silicon, and it was the recognition of silicon’s superior material properties that enabled the modern electronics industry. He raised the question of whether aluminum and niobium may be the “germaniums” of quantum computing — materials that will eventually be replaced as better options are identified.
The manufacturing focus is a second dimension of the challenge. Even improved qubits will not produce useful computers unless quantum hardware can be fabricated at scale, which is why C2QA’s emphasis on silicon-compatible materials could determine whether laboratory breakthroughs translate into deployable systems.
Black’s Path from IBM to Brookhaven
Black’s career, as described in the report, traces the arc from fundamental superconductivity research to applied quantum hardware. As a doctoral student at Harvard University, he used superconducting materials to study fundamental physics questions — work he said he did not expect to return to. “I feel like I’ve come full circle,” Black said of returning to superconductors through quantum computing.
He spent 1996 to 2006 as a research staff member at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, pioneering polymer self-assembly for semiconductor fabrication. He then joined Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) in 2006 as one of its first group leaders and directed CFN from 2016 to 2025. At CFN, he worked with in-house experts and thousands of visiting researchers, an experience he said shaped his conviction that materials science enables discoveries across disciplines.
C2QA launched in 2020 and brought together leading physicists — including the Yale University inventors of the superconducting transmon qubit — with materials scientists to investigate whether superconducting materials were limiting qubit performance.
“I feel like I’ve come full circle.”
— Charles Black, C2QA director
What the Tantalum Results Don’t Yet Prove
Several points remain open. The millisecond-lifetime qubits were produced in a laboratory setting, and the report does not establish that tantalum devices can be manufactured reliably at scale or integrated into large modular systems. The claim that these are the world’s best-performing superconducting transmon qubits comes from the report and press release rather than an independent benchmark, and no peer-reviewed publication is cited in the source material.
Whether aluminum and niobium will in fact be displaced — Black’s own framing is a question, not a conclusion — is unresolved. The report also does not quantify how far current materials and manufacturing capabilities remain from fault-tolerant, scalable quantum computers, C2QA’s ultimate goal. The source material appears truncated, and Black’s remarks on collaboration are incomplete.
C2QA’s Road Toward Fault Tolerance
According to the report, C2QA’s ongoing work centers on two tracks: continued materials discovery to improve qubit performance beyond the tantalum results, and development of quantum devices using silicon-compatible materials that align with existing manufacturing capabilities. The center’s stated aim is to combine these advances with modular system architectures to enable scalable, fault-tolerant quantum systems.
Under Black’s leadership, the 28-institution collaboration is expected to continue pairing physicists, including the original transmon inventors, with materials scientists at Brookhaven’s user facilities. No specific milestones or timelines were disclosed in the source material.
Key Questions
What is C2QA?
The Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage is a National Quantum Information Science Research Center led by Brookhaven National Laboratory and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. It launched in 2020 and spans 28 institutions from national labs, academia, and industry, focusing on materials science and modular architectures for scalable quantum computing.
Who is Charles Black?
Black is a materials scientist who has directed C2QA since June 2025. He previously led Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials from 2016 to 2025 and worked at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center from 1996 to 2006 on semiconductor device fabrication.
Why did researchers switch to tantalum for qubits?
According to the report, superconducting qubit performance plateaued after more than a decade of using aluminum and niobium. C2QA researchers at Princeton built qubits with tantalum because it has fewer oxidation states suspected of degrading performance, producing transmon qubits with lifetimes exceeding one millisecond.
Does a one-millisecond qubit lifetime mean practical quantum computers are near?
No. The report itself states that better qubit performance alone will not enable scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computers, and that manufacturing quantum hardware at scale remains a separate, unsolved challenge.
Has the tantalum qubit result been independently verified?
The claim that the qubits are the world’s best-performing superconducting transmons comes from the report and underlying press release. No peer-reviewed publication or independent benchmark is cited in the source material.
Source: rss
Fall Picks
fall essentials
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
