In most naturally occurring superconductors, electrons with opposite spins form Cooper pairs. This includes both conventional s-wave superconductors such as aluminium, as well as high-transition-temperature, d-wave superconductors. Materials with intrinsic p-wave superconductivity, hosting Cooper pairs made of equal-spin electrons, have not been conclusively identified, nor synthesized, despite promising progress^1,2,3. Instead, engineered platforms where s-wave superconductors are brought into contact with magnetic materials have shown convincing signatures of equal-spin pairing^4,5,6. Here we directly measure equal-spin pairing between spin-polarized quantum dots. This pairing is proximity-induced from an s-wave superconductor into a semiconducting nanowire with strong spin–orbit interaction. We demonstrate such pairing by showing that breaking a Cooper pair can result in two electrons with equal spin polarization. Our results demonstrate controllable detection of singlet and triplet pairing between the quantum dots. Achieving such triplet pairing in a sequence of quantum dots will be required for realizing an artificial Kitaev chain^7,8,9.

在大多数自然产生的超导体中，具有相反自旋的电子形成库珀对。这包括传统的 s波超导体，例如铝，以及高转变温度的d波超导体。^{尽管取得了可喜的进展1,2,3}，但尚未最终确定或合成具有固有p波超导性、由等自旋电子制成的库珀对的材料。相反，s波超导体与磁性材料接触的工程平台已经显示出令人信服的等自旋配对特征^4,5,6. 在这里，我们直接测量自旋极化量子点之间的等自旋配对。这种配对是从s波超导体接近感应到具有强自旋轨道相互作用的半导体纳米线。我们通过证明打破库珀对可以导致两个具有相同自旋极化的电子来证明这种配对。我们的结果证明了对量子点之间单线态和三线态配对的可控检测。在量子点序列中实现这样的三重态配对将需要实现人工 Kitaev 链^7,8,9。