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VERSION:2.0
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PRODID:UW-Madison-Physics-Events
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SEQUENCE:0
UID:UW-Physics-Event-2161
DTSTART:20110908T150000Z
DURATION:PT1H0M0S
DTSTAMP:20260420T150213Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20110815T131417Z
LOCATION:5310 Chamberlin
SUMMARY:The search for Majorana Fermions in semiconductor nanowires\, 
 R. G. Herb Condensed Matter Seminar\, Roman M. Lutchyn\, Microsoft Sta
 tion Q\, University of California
DESCRIPTION:The exploration of topological phases of matter is one of 
 the main challenges in condensed matter physics. Among the exciting re
 cent developments in this direction are the discoveries of the new pha
 ses of matter with many intriguing properties such as topological insu
 lators and superconductors. In my talk\, I will focus on topological s
 uperconductors and discuss how to realize spinless p-wave superconduct
 ivity in semiconductor/superconductor heterostructures. I will show th
 at such a non-trivial topological state emerging at the interface supp
 orts zero-energy modes that can be occupied by Majorana fermions. Thes
 e quasi-particles\, which are exotic in the sense that they are at the
  same time their own antiparticles\, are effectively fractionalized ob
 jects (anyons) obeying non-Abelian statistics. Despite being first pre
 dicted by E. Majorana in 1930s\, there is still no conclusive evidence
  of their existence. If found\, Majorana fermions would constitute a k
 ey building block for the implementation of fault-tolerant topological
  quantum computation schemes that are inherently decoherence-free. I w
 ill conclude by proposing several experiments for detecting Majorana f
 ermions in nanowires.
URL:https://www.physics.wisc.edu/events/?id=2161
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