Majorana

Microsoft announced that they had figured out a way to create an elusive kind of particle that could potentially revolutionize quantum computing.

Key Point

They has found a way to create an elusive kind of particle Majorana zero mode that could potentially revolutionize quantum computing.

All subatomic particles that makeup matter are called fermions.
In 1928, Paul Dirac described the behaviour of subatomic particles that moved at near the speed of light. This is called as Dirac Equation.
Dirac Equation predicted the existence of an antiparticle for each particle.
The first antiparticle, the positron (or the anti-electron) was found in 1932.
In 1937 Ettore Majorana found that the Dirac equation also allowed particles that satisfied certain conditions to be their own antiparticles. In his honor, fermions that are their own antiparticles are called Majorana fermions.

All particles have four quantum numbers associated with them No two particles in the same system can have the same four quantum numbers.
The characteristic feature of fermions is that one of these numbers, called the quantum spin, has only half-integer values, like 1/2, 3/2, 5/2, etc. This is why any particle, can be a fermion only its total quantum spin needs to have a half-integer value.
This is also why two bound particles in some way can be a fermion because their total quantum spin needs to have a half-integer value.
Most of the rules that apply to single fermions also apply to these pairs or bound states.
When these bound states are their own antiparticles – i.e., if they meet, they destroy each other – they are Majorana fermions Physicists call such bound states Majorana zero modes.

Majorana zero modes possess unique properties that make Quantum Computers more robust and computationally superior.
Majorana zero modes offer increased stability for qubits, the fundamental units of information in quantum computing.
Even if one entity within the bound state is disturbed, the qubit as a whole can remain protected and retain encoded information.
Majorana zero modes offer topological degeneracy, allowing for the storage and retrieval of information from different topological properties, without easily losing the encoded information.

Quantum computing is a rapidly-emerging technology that harnesses the laws of quantum mechanics to solve problems too complex for classical computers.
It is an area of computer science that uses the principles of quantum theory. Quantum theory explains the behavior of energy and material on the atomic and subatomic levels.
Unlike classical computers, which use bits to represent information as either 0 or 1, quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which can exist in multiple states simultaneously thanks to the phenomenon of superposition.