The search for Majorana fermions—exotic quantum states that have the potential to revolutionize quantum computing—has been anything but straightforward. Experimental hints of the states were first seen in 2012. In 2018, researchers at a Microsoft laboratory in the Netherlands claimed they had unequivocal experimental evidence for Majorana fermions but later retracted their claim. Now a team containing some of the researchers on that 2018 study has found evidence for a cousin of the Majorana fermion, the so-called poor man’s Majorana [1]. The team anticipates that the finding will revive the field and the hunt for these elusive states.
When the experimental realization of the Majorana fermion was retracted, “there was a crisis in the Majorana field,” says Tom Dvir of Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, and a researcher on the new study. “We hope that our finding will help refocus efforts.”
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