basics Examples In solid state physics, the term “Majorana zero mode” (often abbreviated “MZM” or just “Majorana”) has come to refer to (hypothetical and so far elusive) ground states of certain effectively 1-dimensional quantum materials (quantum/nano-wires) which are acted on by a “Majorana operator” (namely the Hermitian combination of fermion annihilation/creation operators, only vaguely related to relativistic Majorana spinors) and which have been argued to potentially behave like Majorana.