Rate My Professor Dominik Zumbühl

Dominik Zumbühl is Professor of Experimental Physics in the Department of Physics at the University of Basel. He received his Diploma in Physics from ETH Zürich in 1998, an MSc from Stanford University in 2000, and a PhD from Harvard University in 2004 for research on quantum coherence and spin in semiconductor quantum dots. After completing a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at MIT, he was appointed as a tenure-track assistant professor at the University of Basel in 2006, where he established the Quantum Coherence Laboratory dedicated to quantum transport experiments. He advanced to associate professor in 2012 and full professor in 2023. From 2015 to 2019, he served as Chair of the Department of Physics. Since 2021, Zumbühl has directed the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) SPIN, Switzerland's leading program on quantum computing using silicon and germanium spins.

Zumbühl's research centers on quantum transport experiments in semiconductor nanostructures at ultralow temperatures, probing quantum coherence, electron and hole spins, nuclear spin interactions, spin-orbit coupling, and related phenomena. Key efforts include developing fast hole spin qubits, nanowires and one-dimensional systems for novel quantum matter, tunneling spectroscopy of edge states, and machine learning for quantum device tuning. He secured an ERC Starting Grant in the first funding round of 2008. In 2023, he was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society for quantum transport experiments in semiconductor nanostructures studying coherence, spins, spin-orbit coupling, and instrument development. Prominent publications encompass "Cotunneling spectroscopy in few-electron quantum dots" (Physical Review Letters, 2004), "Ultrafast hole spin qubit with gate-tunable spin-orbit switch" (Nature Nanotechnology, 2021), "Fully autonomous tuning of a spin qubit" (Nature Electronics, 2026), "Compromise-free scaling of qubit speed and coherence" (Nature Communications, 2025), and "Signatures of Chiral Superconductivity in Rhombohedral Graphene" (Nature, 2025). His contributions have profoundly influenced quantum technologies and condensed matter physics.