Peer-reviewed results published in Nature Physics open a new front in the quantum computing race
CHICAGO, June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — EeroQ, the quantum computing company, today announced the first-ever demonstration of the strong coupling of a microwave photon to the charge qubit state of an electron on helium, a landmark result that establishes the electron-on-helium (eHe) approach to quantum computing as a reality and introduces a powerful new contender in the global race to build a practical quantum computer. The results have been peer reviewed and published in Nature Physics.
Today, there are six major approaches to building a quantum computer: superconducting circuits, ion traps, neutral atoms, photonics, silicon spin, and topological qubits. These methods are being pursued by major corporations, including IBM, Google, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Intel, and Honeywell, as well as numerous well-funded startups. Yet despite decades of research and development and billions of dollars of investment, all of these approaches have faced difficult technical (and in some cases scientific) challenges and have been limited to the scale of hundreds of qubits in most systems, far short of the likely millions or more qubits needed for real commercial applications.
EeroQ’s quantum measurement demonstration now establishes qubits based on electrons on helium as a viable seventh candidate for quantum computing; one that researchers have long believed could offer the best of all worlds in terms of qubit quality and scalability.
“This is a seminal moment for quantum computing,” said Nick Farina, co-founder and CEO of EeroQ. “For over 25 years, electrons on helium have been identified as a uniquely promising qubit platform, but until now, no one had demonstrated the ability to couple to an actual electron qubit state in this system. Our result changes that, and it’s just the beginning. It opens the door to an even more powerful qubit, based on the electron’s spin magnetism that we believe will outperform anything available today.”
The concept of using electrons floating on the surface of liquid helium as qubits was first conceived of in 1999 by researchers at Bell Labs and Michigan State University and published in Science, and later expanded upon by EeroQ’s CTO, Princeton professor Stephen Lyon. The approach has long been recognized for its potential to combine exceptional qubit quality with rapid scalability, owing to its compatibility with CMOS: the same semiconductor fabrication technology used to manufacture today’s computer chips and smartphones.
