Kitaev chains have recently been realized in semiconductor quantum dots (QD) coupled to
each other through Andreev bound states (ABS) emerging from the superconducting proximity effect. These chains are a promising platform for the detection and manipulation of Majorana bound states, which are predicted to have interesting properties for quantum information experiments such as non-Abelian statistics and robustness to charge noise. In this thesis, we show strong coupling in a relatively long 2-site Kitaev chain in a QD-ABS-QD setup and demonstrate that control over the superconducting phase of the ABS allows tuning of the Kitaev chain regime. We also investigate the Majorana wavefunction overlap in the ABS in the strong coupling regime. We then discuss a 3-site Kitaev chain in the QD-ABS-QD-ABS-QD system, where we demonstrate the importance of superconducting phase control for stable Majorana bound states in this system and directly probe the excitation gap in the bulk of the
chain, showing the delocalization of the Majorana bound states. Lastly, we study the
Majorana protection against chemical potential fluctuations in the 3-site chain.