We cannot believe we overlooked these Majorana discoveries

TL;DR

This paper revisits past experiments on superconductor-semiconductor nanowires, revealing that they contained early evidence of Majorana fermions, including quantized zero-bias peaks and topological phase transitions, which are crucial for quantum computing.

Contribution

The authors identify and interpret overlooked Majorana signatures in their 2012 data, providing key evidence of topological states that advance the understanding of Majorana fermions.

Findings

Observation of quantized zero-bias peaks indicating Majorana states

Detection of gap closing and reopening correlated with zero-bias peaks

Evidence supporting topological quantum phase transition in nanowire devices

Abstract

In 2011-2012 we performed experiments on hybrid superconductor-semiconductor nanowire devices which yielded signatures of Majorana fermions based on zero-bias peaks in tunneling measurements. The research field that grew out of those findings and other contemporary works has advanced significantly, and a lot of new knowledge and insights were gained. However, key smoking gun evidence of Majorana is still lacking. In this paper, we report that while reviewing our old data recently, armed with a decade of knowledge, we realized that back in 2012 our results contained two breakthrough Majorana discoveries. Specifically, we have observed quantized zero-bias peaks, the hallmark of ideal Majorana states. Furthermore, we have observed the closing and re-opening of the induced gap perfectly correlated with the emergence of the zero-bias peak - clear evidence of the topological quantum phase superconducting transition. These insights should pave the way to topological Majorana qubits, and you should also check supplementary information for important disclosures.