Researchers at QuTech have found a way to make Majorana particles in a two-dimensional plane. This was achieved by creating devices that exploit the combined material properties of superconductors and semiconductors. The inherent flexibility of this new 2D platform should allow one to perform experiments with Majoranas that were previously inaccessible. The results are published in Nature.
Quantum computers operate fundamentally differently from classical computers. While classical computers use bits as the basic unit of information, which can be either 0 or 1, quantum computers use qubits, which can exist in a state of 0, 1, or both simultaneously.
This principle of superposition, combined with new quantum algorithms could allow quantum computers to solve certain problems much more efficiently than classical computers. However, the qubits that store this quantum information are inherently more fragile than classical bits.
Majorana qubits are based on states of matter that are topologically protected. This means that small local disturbances cannot destroy the state of the qubit. This robustness to external influences makes Majorana qubits highly desirable for quantum computing, since quantum information encoded in these states would remain stable for significantly longer times.
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