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"There are issues that need to be improved in these qubits so you can have a quantum state that lasts a very long time without, essentially, decaying," Lee said. "This new type of state, with long-range entanglement, is very robust, or protected, against that," Lee said.
In addition to helping to reliably store data and do calculations in quantum computing, long-range entanglement might aid in communication technology, according to Lee. A QSL material might also be turned into a superconductor for efficient electrical transmission over power lines, Lee said.
It's too soon to say how the challenges of building pure herbertsmithite crystals or cooling them down might translate into making quantum storage or other technologies.
"Once we understand a lot more of the basic physics, there could be some good ideas for the engineering aspects, but we're still very early into this research," Lee said. "It's many, many years away from becoming something that's in a technology that a consumer would use."
Stephen Lawson covers mobile, storage and networking technologies for The IDG News Service. Follow Stephen on Twitter at @sdlawsonmedia. Stephen's e-mail address is stephen_lawson@idg.com
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