Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have discovered a method to generate a large, uniform area of ultrathin superconducting material that remains stable in air. They “grow” the superconducting material, called niobium diselenide, underneath another atomically thin material, carbon-based graphene. The graphene layer protects the fragile superconductor from oxidation, while guiding it to grow in a smooth layer over a large wafer-scale area. The researchers further integrated this air-stable superconductor into a superconducting microwave circuit. When tested, the material maintained its superconducting properties and exhibited high kinetic inductance, which is a resource for many quantum devices. Blogger's Review: This discovery could help miniaturize superconducting quantum computing hardware, as well as technologies like ultrasensitive quantum detectors for communications or cosmology. The researchers used a different tactic, putting the layer of graphene on top of the silicon dioxide substrate first, then depositing the precursors and growing the superconducting material in the tiny gap between the two layers.