Hunting for Majoranas

TL;DR

This review discusses the progress and challenges in creating topological superconductors hosting Majorana zero modes, highlighting experimental efforts, lessons learned, and future opportunities in quantum physics research.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of experimental approaches and insights into creating Majorana-based topological phases, guiding future research directions.

Findings

Experimental efforts have advanced understanding of topological superconductors.

Detection of non-abelian quasi-particles remains challenging.

Lessons learned are guiding new approaches and improvements.

Abstract

Over the last decade, there have been considerable efforts to observe non-abelian quasi-particles in novel quantum materials and devices. These efforts are motivated by the goals of demonstrating quantum statistics of quasi-particles beyond those of fermions and bosons and of establishing the underlying science for the creation of topologically protected quantum bits. In this review, we focus on efforts to create topological superconducting phases hosting Majorana zero modes. We consider the lessons learned from existing experimental efforts, which are motivating both improvemensts to current platforms and exploration of new approaches. Although the experimental detection of non-abelian quasi-particles remains challenging, the knowledge gained thus far and the opportunities ahead offer high potential for discovery and advances in this exciting area of quantum physics.