Q uantum dots are tiny semiconductor structures that can serve as qubits, with quantum information stored in the spin or charge states of confined electrons. But the limited coherence time of these qubits greatly restricts their potential applications. Now, Kha Tran at the US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, and his colleagues, and Pasquale Scarlino at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, and his colleagues, have demonstrated ways to increase this coherence time [1, 2].Tran's team considered a spin-based qubit comprising a pair of coupled quantum dots. Previous work had suggested that the coherence time of such a qubit could be extended by operating the system at a particular electrical bias known as the "sweet spot." Tran and his colleagues used a quantum-optics technique called Ramsey interferometry to directly measure the qubit's coherence time at this sweet spot. They obtained a maximum value of 60 ns-more than 10 times higher than that of spin qubits formed by single quantum dots. The researchers Credit: P. Scarlino et al. [2]