Topological qubits with Majorana fermions in trapped ions

We propose a method of encoding a topologically protected qubit using Majorana fermions in a trapped-ion chain. This qubit is protected against major sources of decoherence, while local operations and measurements can be realized. Furthermore, we show that an efficient quantum interface and memory for arbitrary multiqubit photonic states can be built, encoding them into a set of entangled Majorana fermion qubits inside cavities.