One of the major challenges in turning quantum technology from potential to reality is getting super-delicate quantum states to last longer than a few milliseconds – and scientists just raised the bar by a factor of about 10,000.

They did it by tackling something called decoherence: that’s the disruption from surrounding noise caused by vibrations, fluctuations in temperature, and interference from electromagnetic fields that can very easily break a quantum state.

“With this approach, we don’t try to eliminate noise in the surroundings,” says quantum engineer Kevin Miao, from the University of Chicago. “Instead, we trick the system into thinking it doesn’t experience the noise.”