http://phys.org/news/2015-05-monopoly-aluminium-broken.htmlA Majorana fermion, or a Majorana particle, is a fermion that is its own antiparticle. Discovering the Majorana was the first step, but utilizing it as a quantum bit (qubit) still remains a major challenge. An important step towards this goal has just been taken by researchers from TU Delft in today's issue of Nature Physics. It is a nearly thirty-year-old scientific problem that has just been resolved: demonstrating the difference between the even and odd occupation of a superconductor in high magnetic fields. Thus far, this was only possible in aluminium, which is incompatible with Majoranas. This result enables the read out and manipulation of quantum states encoded in prospective Majorana qubits.
