Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics· 2013Q1· Review
Search for Majorana Fermions in Superconductors
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- Q1SCImago
- 2013year
Short summary
Majorana fermions, particles that are their own antiparticles, can be constructed from electron and hole excitations in topological superconductors, offering potential for long-coherence-time qubits.
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Key points
- Majorana fermions can be constructed from electron and hole excitations in topological superconductors.
- Topological superconductors provide the necessary conditions (hidden charge difference, zero energy) to create Majorana fermions.
- A pair of widely separated Majorana fermions exhibits non-Abelian exchange statistics.
- Qubits encoded in Majorana pairs are expected to have exceptionally long coherence times.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Majorana fermions (particles that are their own antiparticle) may or may not exist in nature as elementary building blocks, but in condensed matter they can be constructed out of electron and hole excitations. What is needed is a superconductor to hide the charge difference and a topological (Berry) phase to eliminate the energy difference from zero-point motion. A pair of widely separated Majorana fermions, bound to magnetic or electrostatic defects, has non-Abelian exchange statistics. A qubit encoded in this Majorana pair is expected to have an unusually long coherence time. I discuss strategies to detect Majorana fermions in a topological superconductor, as well as possible applications in a quantum computer. The status of the experimental search is reviewed.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics, 2013 · DOI ↗
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Field: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Atomic and Molecular Physics, and OpticsPhysics and Astronomy