Researchers at Princeton have observed a particle that simultaneously behaves like matter and antimatter, something that could eventually be used in powerful  computers that are based on quantum computing.

In order to observe the particle, researchers used a two-story tall microscope that floats in an ultralow-vibration lab at Princeton. Using that microscope, researchers captured an image of the particle called the “Majorana fermion,” which sat at the end of an atomically thin wire. This is exactly where is was predicted to be after studies dating back to the 1930’s.

“This is the most direct way of looking for the Majorana fermion since it is expected to emerge at the edge of certain materials,” said Ali Yazdani, a researcher who headed up the team. “If you want to find this particle within a material you have to use such a microscope, which allows you to see where it actually is.”

Researchers have been looking for the Majorana fermion since they first realized in that their equations implied the existence of antimatter. Back in 1937, a researcher called Ettore Majorana predicted that one particle could exist as both matter and antimatter. Despite the fact that researchers have found a number of forms of antimatter, the combination of both has remained elusive until now.

Another surprise is the stability of the particle, considering the fact that it combines qualities that normally destroy each other. Instead, the qualities render each other neutral, meaning the particle interacts very weakly with its environment.

Despite speculation surrounding the particle, there was little progress in its discovery until 2001, when Alexei Kitaev predicted that the particle would appear under the right conditions at the end of a superconducting wire.

The team first published its results in the October 2 edition of Science.