Experimental review on Majorana zero-modes in hybrid nanowires

TL;DR

This review summarizes recent experimental progress in detecting Majorana zero-modes in semiconductor-superconductor hybrid nanowires, highlighting key signatures, challenges, and future directions for topological quantum computing.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of recent experimental signatures and theoretical understanding of Majorana zero-modes in hybrid nanowire devices, with insights for future research.

Findings

Observation of zero-bias conductance peaks

Detection of oscillations and quantization signatures

Analysis of interactions with additional degrees of freedom

Abstract

As the condensed matter analog of Majorana fermion, the Majorana zero-mode is well known as a building block of fault-tolerant topological quantum computing. This review focuses on the recent progress of Majorana experiments, especially experiments about semiconductor-superconductor hybrid devices. We first sketch Majorana zero-mode formation from a bottom-up view, which is more suitable for beginners and experimentalists. Then, we survey the status of zero-energy state signatures reported recently, from zero-energy conductance peaks, the oscillations, the quantization, and the interactions with extra degrees of freedom. We also give prospects of future experiments for advancing one-dimensional semiconductor nanowire-superconductor hybrid materials and devices.