  We explore the signatures of Majorana fermions in a nanowire based
topological superconductor-quantum dot-topological superconductor hybrid device
by charge transport measurements. The device is made from an epitaxially grown
InSb nanowire with two superconductor Nb contacts on a Si/SiO$_2$ substrate. At
low temperatures, a quantum dot is formed in the segment of the InSb nanowire
between the two Nb contacts and the two Nb contacted segments of the InSb
nanowire show superconductivity due to the proximity effect. At zero magnetic
field, well defined Coulomb diamonds and the Kondo effect are observed in the
charge stability diagram measurements in the Coulomb blockade regime of the
quantum dot. Under the application of a finite, sufficiently strong magnetic
field, a zero-bias conductance peak structure is observed in the same Coulomb
blockade regime. It is found that the zero-bias conductance peak is present in
many consecutive Coulomb diamonds, irrespective of the even-odd parity of the
quasi-particle occupation number in the quantum dot. In addition, we find that
the zero-bias conductance peak is in most cases accompanied by two differential
conductance peaks, forming a triple-peak structure, and the separation between
the two side peaks in bias voltage shows oscillations closely correlated to the
background Coulomb conductance oscillations of the device. The observed
zero-bias conductance peak and the associated triple-peak structure are in line
with the signatures of Majorana fermion physics in a nanowire based topological
superconductor-quantum dot-topological superconductor system, in which the two
Majorana bound states adjacent to the quantum dot are hybridized into a pair of
quasi-particle states with finite energies and the other two Majorana bound
states remain as the zero-energy modes located at the two ends of the entire
InSb nanowire.
