A joint research team from the Institute of Physics and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences observed Majorana bound states in an iron-based superconductor for the first time. The researchers used an ultra-low temperature STM system to measure a single crystal FeTe0.55Se0.45 under high magnetic field. Pure Majorana bound states appear in the vortex core, which are protected by a large topological gap and survive at relatively high temperature. This implies that Majorana bound states can also be found in other multiband superconductors, which enlarges the research field for Majorana excitations. This new platform does not need heterostructure fabrication, making it easier for braiding and demonstrating non-Abelian statistics. It is a major advance for building a future stable, scalable, and fault-tolerant topological quantum computer. This work was published in Science on Oct. 19, 2018, with online publication in the same journal on Aug. 16, 2018.
Majorana bound states in an iron-based superconductor
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