Canceling noise to improve quantum devices

For years, researchers have tried various ways to coax quantum bits — or qubits, the basic building blocks of quantum computers — to remain in their quantum state for ever-longer times, a key step in creating devices like quantum sensors, gyroscopes, and memories.A team of physicists from MIT have taken an important step forward in that quest, and to do it, they borrowed a concept from an unlikely source — noise-canceling headphones.Led by Ju Li, the Battelle Energy Allian