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Charles Black, director of Brookhaven National Laboratory’s C2QA, is leading research into superconducting materials and quantum hardware manufacturing. The center reports that tantalum-based transmon qubits achieved lifetimes exceeding one millisecond; how its materials and manufacturing work will translate to larger, fault-tolerant systems remains an open challenge.
Charles Black, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage, is leading research at Brookhaven National Laboratory into superconducting materials and manufacturing approaches for quantum computing. The work matters because improving individual qubits and producing compatible hardware at scale are both challenges on the path toward fault-tolerant quantum systems.
C2QA researchers are investigating materials including tantalum for superconducting transmon qubits. According to the center’s report, researchers from Princeton University built qubits using tantalum instead of aluminum and niobium, then used characterization facilities at Brookhaven to study how surface oxidation affects performance.
The report says the team achieved transmon qubits with lifetimes exceeding one millisecond, which it describes as the longest ever reported. That superlative is the center’s claim; the report does not provide an independent comparison or supporting study details in the material available here.
Black’s remit also includes the manufacturing problem. C2QA is pursuing quantum devices made with silicon-compatible materials that may align with existing production capabilities. The center brings together 28 institutions across national laboratories, universities and industry, according to the report.
From Qubit Lifetimes to Scalable Hardware
Longer-lived qubits could help researchers address errors that limit quantum computations. But the reported lifetime result is a materials and device performance milestone, not evidence that a practical, fault-tolerant quantum computer has been built. The center’s own account says better qubit performance alone will not solve the scaling problem.
Manufacturing is a separate constraint: quantum devices must be made reliably and in larger numbers while retaining the properties needed for computation. Black’s background in semiconductor research is relevant to that challenge. Whether silicon-compatible approaches can deliver quantum hardware at scale remains to be demonstrated.
Black’s Path to C2QA
Black earned a doctorate at Harvard, where he studied superconducting materials in fundamental physics research. He later worked at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center from 1996 to 2006, researching polymer self-assembly methods for semiconductor devices.
He joined Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials in 2006, became its director in 2016 and held that role until 2025. C2QA launched in 2020 to bring physicists and materials researchers together; Black was named its director in June 2025. The center is led by Brookhaven for the Department of Energy.
“I feel like I’ve come full circle.”
— Charles Black, C2QA director
What the Report Leaves Open
The report does not specify the measurement conditions or provide a linked research paper for the stated one-millisecond-plus qubit lifetimes. It also does not detail how many devices were tested or how performance varied across them. Those details would help readers assess the scope and reproducibility of the result.
It remains unclear when C2QA’s materials research could lead to manufacturing processes capable of producing large quantities of reliable quantum hardware. The report describes that as an ongoing research goal, not an achieved capability. It gives no timeline for a scalable, fault-tolerant system.
Testing Materials at Manufacturing Scale
C2QA’s stated next challenge is to connect improved qubit materials with hardware that can be manufactured at larger scale. Further materials characterization and device research will be needed to determine whether tantalum and other candidate materials can support that effort. The report does not announce a schedule or a specific upcoming system demonstration.
Key Questions
Who is Charles Black?
Black is director of the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage at Brookhaven National Laboratory and deputy associate laboratory director for Brookhaven’s Energy and Photon Sciences Directorate.
What is C2QA researching?
C2QA brings researchers from national laboratories, universities and industry together to study quantum computing challenges, including superconducting materials, qubit performance and hardware architecture.
What did the tantalum qubit work report?
The report says C2QA researchers achieved superconducting transmon qubit lifetimes of more than one millisecond and calls them the longest ever reported. The supplied material does not include the underlying paper or measurement details.
Does the result mean scalable quantum computers are ready?
No. The reported result concerns qubit lifetime. The center says manufacturing quantum hardware at scale remains a separate challenge, and the report does not claim a practical, fault-tolerant computer has been built.
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