Majorana Fermions: The race continues

Abstract

A critical overview is given, aimed at non-specialist audience, of the recent efforts to detect and manipulate Majorana fermions in solid state devices. It is argued that the experiments on semiconductor quantum wires proximity coupled to superconducting leads present tantalizing hints but not a definitive evidence for these elusive particles.

An invited Commentary to appear in Nature Nanotechnology. 4 pages 3 figures

References in corpus (26)

• Topological Insulators
• Fault-tolerant quantum computation by anyons
• Non-Abelian Anyons and Topological Quantum Computation
• Superconducting proximity effect and Majorana fermions at the surface of a topological insulator
• Unpaired Majorana fermions in quantum wires
• Signatures of Majorana fermions in hybrid superconductor-semiconductor nanowire devices
• Majorana Fermions and a Topological Phase Transition in Semiconductor-Superconductor Heterostructures
• Paired states of fermions in two dimensions with breaking of parity and time-reversal symmetries, and the fractional quantum Hall effect
• Helical liquids and Majorana bound states in quantum wires
• New directions in the pursuit of Majorana fermions in solid state systems
• Evidence of Majorana fermions in an Al - InAs nanowire topological superconductor
• A generic new platform for topological quantum computation using semiconductor heterostructures
• Non-Abelian statistics and topological quantum information processing in 1D wire networks
• Observation of Majorana Fermions in a Nb-InSb Nanowire-Nb Hybrid Quantum Device
• Majorana fermions in a tunable semiconductor device
• Observation of the fractional ac Josephson effect: the signature of Majorana particles
• Aharonov-Bohm interference in topological insulator nanoribbons
• Zero-bias peaks in spin-orbit coupled superconducting wires with and without Majorana end-states
• Electron Teleportation via Majorana Bound States in a Mesoscopic Superconductor
• A Majorana smoking gun for the superconductor-semiconductor hybrid topological system
• Majorana Fermions in Proximity-coupled Topological Insulator Nanowires
• Quantum point contact as a probe of a topological superconductor
• Observation of the superconducting proximity effect and possible evidence for Pearl vortices in a candidate topological insulator
• Wormhole Effect in a Strong Topological Insulator
• Stability of Majorana Fermions in Proximity-Coupled Topological Insulator Nanowires
• To close or not to close: the fate of the superconducting gap across the topological quantum phase transition in Majorana-carrying semiconductor nanowires

Cited by in corpus (78)

• Realization of Two-Dimensional Spin-orbit Coupling for Bose-Einstein Condensates
• Localization protected quantum order
• Kitaev chains with long-range pairing
• Subtle leakage of a Majorana mode into a quantum dot
• Fully gapped topological surface states in Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$ films induced by a d-wave high-temperature superconductor
• Uncover Topology by Quantum Quench Dynamics
• Long-range Ising and Kitaev Models: Phases, Correlations and Edge Modes
• One-dimensional helical transport in topological insulator nanowire interferometers
• Majorana nanowires for topological quantum computation
• Interaction effects on a Majorana zero mode leaking into a quantum dot
• Correlated spin currents generated by resonant crossed Andreev reflections in topological superconductors
• Correlations between Majorana fermions through a superconductor
• Composite Topological Excitations in Ferromagnet-Superconductor Heterostructures
• Wireless Majorana Bound States: From Magnetic Tunability to Braiding
• Proposal for the detection and braiding of Majorana fermions in a quantum spin Hall insulator
• Dirac, Rashba and Weyl type spin-orbit couplings: toward experimental realization in ultracold atoms
• Topological phases in Kitaev chain with imbalanced pairing
• Two-Dimensional Group-IV Chalcogenide Si2Te2 film: A New Quantum Spin Hall Insulator with Sizable Band Gap
• Inhomogeneous Topological Superfluidity in One-Dimensional Spin-Orbit-Coupled Fermi Gases
• Annihilation of colliding Bogoliubov quasiparticles reveals their Majorana nature
• Stretched exponential decay of Majorana edge modes in many-body localized Kitaev chains under dissipation
• Quench dynamics and parity blocking in Majorana wires
• Quantization of spin Hall conductivity in two-dimensional topological insulators versus symmetry and spin-orbit interaction
• Tunable Magnetic Textures: From Majorana Bound States to Braiding
• Partial Equilibration of the Anti-Pfaffian edge due to Majorana Disorder
• Defective Majorana zero modes in non-Hermitian Kitaev chain
• A generic theory for Majorana zero modes in 2D superconductors
• Degenerate topological line surface phonons in quasi-1D double helix crystal SnIP
• Transport equations for superconductors in the presence of spin interaction
• Self-consistent microscopic derivation of Markovian master equations for open quadratic quantum systems
• Non-Abelian Majorana modes protected by an emergent second Chern number
• Majorana Zero Modes Protected by Hopf Invariant in Topologically Trivial Superconductors
• Functionalized Thallium Antimony Films as Excellent Candidates for Large-Gap Quantum Spin Hall Insulator
• Spin-orbit coupling and topological phases for ultracold atoms
• Effects of tilting the magnetic field in 1D Majorana nanowires
• Majorana states in prismatic core-shell nanowires
• Parafermion braiding in fractional quantum Hall edge states with finite chemical potential
• Majorana fermions at the edge of superconducting islands
• Identification of Majorana Modes in Interacting Systems by Local Integrals of Motion
• Two-Dimensional Large Gap Topological Insulators with Large Rashba Spin-Orbit Coupling in Group-IV films
• Effects of non-equilibrium noise on a quantum memory encoded in Majorana zero modes
• Robust topological phase in proximitized core-shell nanowires coupled to multiple superconductors
• Quantum transport through a quantum dot side-coupled to a Majorana bound state pair in the presence of electron-phonon interaction
• Probing Majorana-like states in quantum dots and quantum rings
• Emergence of Majorana modes in cylindrical nanowires
• Anisotropic Quantum Spin Hall Effect, Spin-Orbital Textures and Mott Transition
• Signatures of Majorana fermions in hybrid normal-superconducting rings
• Majorana states and magnetic orbital motion in planar hybrid nanowires
• Fano-Majorana effect and bound states in the continuum on a crossbar-shaped quantum dot hybrid structure
• Tunnel conductance spectroscopy via harmonic generation in a hybrid capacitor device
• Semiclassical quantization of spinning quasiparticles in ballistic Josephson junctions
• Probing Majorana Flat Bands in Nodal $d_{x^2-y^2}$-wave Superconductors with Rashba Spin-Orbit Coupling
• From semimetal to chiral Fulde-Ferrell superfluids
• Majorana fermions coupled to electromagnetic radiation
• Zero Bias Conductance Peak in Dirac Semimetal-Superconductor Devices
• Majorana Doublets, Flat Bands, and Dirac Nodes in s-Wave Superfluids
• Resonant generation of $p$-wave Cooper pair in non-Hermitian Kitaev chain at exceptional point
• A New Platform for Engineering Topological Superconductors: Superlattices on Rashba Superconductors
• Demonstrating Entanglement by Testing Bell's Theorem in Majorana Wires
• Current distributions in stripe Majorana junctions
• Nonlocality of local Andreev conductances as a probe for topological Majorana wires
• Influences of electron-phonon interaction on quantum transport through one quantum-dot system with side-coupled Majorana zero mode
• Gap oscillations and Majorana bound states in magnetic chains on superconducting honeycomb lattices
• Topological phases in pseudospin-1 Fermi gases with two-dimensional spin-orbit coupling
• Nonequilibrium Andreev bound states population in short superconducting junctions coupled to a resonator
• Topological phase in Kitaev chain with spatially separated pairing processes
• Signatures of tunable Majorana-fermion edge states
• Proximity-induced zero-energy states indistinguishable from topological edge states
• Topological suppression of magnetoconductance oscillations in NS junctions
• Circular dichroism of chiral Majoranas
• Charge dynamics and "in plane" magnetic field I: Rashba-Dresselhauss interaction, Majorana fermions and Aharonov-Casher theorems
• Optical absorption of semiconductor 2D Majorana nanowires
• Integration of topological insulator Josephson junctions in superconducting qubit circuits
• Quasi-particle current in planar Majorana nanowires
• Symmetry Reduction and Boundary Modes for Fe-Chains on an s-wave Superconductor
• Topological signatures in a weakly dissipative Kitaev chain of finite length
• Multipartite entanglement in quantum phase transitions
• Spatial coupling of quantum-anomalous-Hall and chiral-Majorana modes