The group of professor Leo Kouwenhoven at QuTech and Microsoft collaborated with theorists and material scientists of various institutes to understand the next steps required to improve the experiments. Now, the scientists provide a definite proof for Majorana existence paving the way towards Majorana quantum bits.

Majorana quasiparticles appear in materials in extremely restricted conditions. When a nanowire made from a semiconductor is connected to a superconductive material, researchers see a so-called zero-bias peak in the case of certain electric and magnetic fields. This signal is the main characteristic of the presence of Majoranas.