Non-reciprocal devices are key components in both classical and quantum electronics. One approach to realizing passive non-reciprocal microwave devices is through capacitive coupling between external electrodes and materials exhibiting non-reciprocal conductance. In this work, we develop an analytic framework that captures the response of such devices in the presence of dissipation while accounting for the full AC dynamics of the material. Our results yield an effective circuit model that accurately describes the device response in experimentally relevant regimes even at small dissipation levels. Furthermore, our analysis reveals counterpropagating features arising from the intrinsic AC response of the material that could be exploited to dynamically switch the non-reciprocity of the device, opening pathways for tunable non-reciprocal microwave technologies.

Direct multiqubit gates are becoming critical to facilitate quantum computations in near-term devices by reducing the gate counts and circuit depth. Here, we demonstrate that fast and high-fidelity three-qubit gates can be realized in a single step by leveraging small anisotropic and chiral three-qubit interactions. These ingredients naturally arise in state-of-the-art spin-based quantum hardware through a combination of spin-orbit interactions and orbital magnetic fields. These interactions resolve the key synchronization issues inherent in protocols relying solely on two-qubit couplings, which significantly limit gate fidelity. We confirm with numerical simulations that our single-step three-qubit gate can outperform existing protocols, potentially achieving infidelity ≤ 10⁻⁴ in 80–100 ns under current experimental conditions. To further benchmark its performance, we also propose an alternative composite three-qubit gate sequence based on anisotropic two-qubit interactions with built-in echo sequence and show that the single-step protocol can outperform it, making it highly suitable for near-term quantum processors.

Two-level systems (TLSs) are the basic units of quantum computers but face a trade-off between operation speed and coherence due to shared coupling paths. Here, we investigate a TLS given by a singlet-triplet (ST+) transition. We identify a magnetic-field configuration that maximizes dipole coupling while minimizing total dephasing, forming a compromise-free sweet spot that mitigates this fundamental trade-off. The TLS is implemented in a crystal-phase-defined double-quantum dot in an InAs nanowire. Using a superconducting resonator, we measure the spin-orbit interaction (SOI) gap, the spin-photon coupling strength, and the total TLS dephasing rate as a function of the in-plane magnetic-field orientation. Our theoretical description postulates phonons as the dominant noise source. The compromise-free sweet spot originates from the SOI, suggesting that it is not restricted to this material platform but might find applications in any material with SOI. These findings pave the way for enhanced nanomaterial engineering for next-generation qubit technologies.

Efficient adiabatic control schemes, where one steers a quantum system along an adiabatic path ensuring minimal excitations while achieving a desired final state, that enable fast, high-fidelity operations are essential for any practical quantum computation. However, current optimization protocols are not universally tractable due to stringent requirements imposed by the microscopic systems encoding the qubit, including complex energy level structures and unwanted transitions, and generally require a trade-off between speed and fidelity of the operation. Here, we address these challenges by developing a general framework for optimal control based on the quantum metric tensor. This framework allows for fast and high-fidelity adiabatic pulses, even for a dense energy spectrum, based solely on the Hamiltonian of the system instead of the time evolution propagator and independent of the size of the underlying Hilbert space. Furthermore, our framework suppresses diabatic transitions and state-dependent crosstalk effects without the need for additional control fields. As an example, we study the adiabatic charge transfer in a double quantum dot to find optimal control pulses with improved performance. We show that for the geometric protocol, the transfer fidelities are lower bounded F>99% for ultrafast 20ns pulses, regardless of the size of the anti-crossing, while being robust against miscalibration errors and quasistatic noise.

Hole spin qubits are emerging as the workhorse of semiconducting quantum processors because of their large spin-orbit interaction, enabling fast, low-power, all-electric operations. However, this interaction also causes non-uniformities, resulting in site-dependent qubit energies and anisotropies. Although these anisotropies enable single-spin control, if not properly harnessed, they can hinder scalability. Here, we report on microwave-driven singlet-triplet qubits in planar germanium and use them to investigate spin anisotropies. For in-plane magnetic fields, the spins are largely anisotropic and electrically tunable, allowing access to all transitions and coherence times exceeding 3 μs are extracted. For out-of-plane fields they have an isotropic response. Even in this field direction, where the qubit lifetime is strongly affected by nuclear spins, we find 400 ns coherence times. Our work adds a valuable tool to investigate and harness the spin anisotropies, applicable to two-dimensional devices, facilitating the path towards scalable quantum processors.

Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) in planar germanium (Ge) heterostructures have emerged as front-runners for future hole-based quantum processors. Here, we present strong coupling between a hole charge qubit, defined in a double quantum dot (DQD) in planar Ge, and microwave photons in a high-impedance (Zr = 1.3 kΩ) resonator based on an array of superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs). Our investigation reveals vacuum-Rabi splittings with coupling strengths up to g0/2π = 260 MHz, and a cooperativity of C ~ 100, dependent on DQD tuning. Furthermore, utilizing the frequency tunability of our resonator, we explore the quenched energy splitting associated with strong Coulomb correlation effects in Ge QDs. The observed enhanced coherence of the strongly correlated excited state signals the presence of distinct symmetries within related spin functions, serving as a precursor to the strong coupling between photons and spin-charge hybrid qubits in planar Ge. This work paves the way towards coherent quantum connections between remote hole qubits in planar Ge, required to scale up hole-based quantum processors.

Shuttling spins with high fidelity is a key requirement to scale up semiconducting quantum computers, enabling qubit entanglement over large distances and favoring the integration of control electronics on-chip. To decouple the spin from the unavoidable charge noise, state-of-the-art spin shuttlers try to minimize the inhomogeneity of the Zeeman field. However, this decoupling is challenging in otherwise promising quantum computing platforms such as hole spin qubits in silicon and germanium, characterized by a large spin-orbit interaction and an electrically tunable qubit frequency. In this work, we show that, surprisingly, the large inhomogeneity of the Zeeman field stabilizes the coherence of a moving spin state, thus also enabling high-fidelity shuttling in these systems. We relate this enhancement in fidelity to the deterministic dynamics of the spin that filters out the dominant low-frequency contributions of the charge noise. By simulating several different scenarios and noise sources, we show that this is a robust phenomenon generally occurring at large field inhomogeneity. By appropriately adjusting the motion of the quantum dot, we also design realistic protocols enabling faster and more coherent spin shuttling. Our findings are generally applicable to a wide range of setups and could pave the way toward large-scale quantum processors.

Electron spins confined in silicon quantum dots are promising candidates for large-scale quantum computers. However, the degeneracy of the conduction band of bulk silicon introduces additional levels dangerously close to the window of computational energies, where the quantum information can leak. The energy of the valley states—typically 0.1 meV—depends on hardly controllable atomistic disorder and still constitutes a fundamental limit to the scalability of these architectures. In this work, we introduce designs of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible silicon fin field-effect transistors that enhance the energy gap to noncomputational states by more than one order of magnitude. Our devices comprise realistic silicon-germanium nanostructures with a large shear strain, where troublesome valley degrees of freedom are completely removed. The energy of noncomputational states is therefore not affected by unavoidable atomistic disorder and can further be tuned in situ by applied electric fields. Our design ideas are directly applicable to a variety of setups and will offer a blueprint toward silicon-based large-scale quantum processors.