Quantum electronics with holes in Si/Ge

Silicon and germanium form the core materials of the well-established microelectronics industry. Lately, they have enabled remarkable progress also in the raising field of quantum technologies, generating at the same time new fundamental questions and technological challenges. In fact, there is still a lot to know about these well-known semiconducting materials and their potential for quantum electronics. In this talk, I will focus on hole-based systems made from silicon and silicon-germanium nanostructures. I will present recent experiments dealing with spin-related effects in siicon quantum dot devices, and discuss their implications for hole-spin qubits. I will also report the realization of prototypical hybrid superconductor-semiconductor devices exploiting the superconducting proximity effect in a high-mobility two-dimensional hole gas confined to a germanium quantum well.