Herbertsmithite could be the new silicon — a building block for quantum computers.

Unlike conventional error-prone quantum computers using electron spin, a new stable design may be possible, using a “string-net liquid” — a potentially new state of matter — with elementary and quasi-particles at the end of “strings.”

Physicists could manipulate these particles with electric fields, braiding them around each other, encoding information in the number of times the strings twist and knot. A disturbance might knock the whole braid, but it won’t change the number of twists — protecting the information.