Scalable Single-Step Generation of W States in 2D Superconducting Qubit Lattices
The reliable generation of multi-qubit entanglement is a prerequisite for large-scale quantum information technologies. In particular, W states are a valuable resource owing to their resilience under local loss or measurement. Nevertheless, preparing these states with sequential two-qubit gates often requires substantial time overhead. By contrast, engineered simultaneous interactions enable fast entanglement generation, even in qubit systems with limited nearest-neighbour connectivity. Here, we demonstrate a set of fast and robust operations for coherently distributing a single excitation across a lattice of arbitrary size, thereby directly generating W states from initial product states. In 2D lattices, the excitation propagates along both directions simultaneously, such that the total entanglement time scales only with the largest dimension. We exploit this property to prepare a six-qubit W state in a 3$\times$2 superconducting lattice within 99 ns, achieving a tomographic fidelity of 83.9$\pm$1.0%. We then extend the protocol to create entanglement across chains of up to seven qubits, with the largest W state generated in 264 ns with a fidelity of 79.6$\pm$1.3%.