Superconductivity protected by spin-valley locking in ion-gated MoS2

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that in ion-gated MoS2, intrinsic Zeeman-type spin-valley locking protects superconductivity against high magnetic fields, revealing a new mechanism distinct from Rashba SOI.

Contribution

It uncovers a novel type of spin-orbit interaction in MoS2 that enables superconductivity to withstand magnetic fields beyond the Pauli limit through inter-valley pairing.

Findings

Upper critical field of ~52 T at 1.5 K

Pauli limit enhanced by a factor of four

Inter-valley pairing protected by spin-valley locking

Abstract

Symmetry-breaking has been known to play a key role in noncentrosymmetric superconductors with strong spin-orbit-interaction (SOI). The studies, however, have been so far mainly focused on a particular type of SOI, known as Rashba SOI, whereby the electron spin is locked to its momentum at a right-angle, thereby leading to an in-planar helical spin texture. Here we discuss electric-field-induced superconductivity in molybdenum disulphide (MoS2), which exhibits a fundamentally different type of intrinsic SOI manifested by an out-of-plane Zeeman-type spin polarization of energy valleys. We find an upper critical field of approximately 52 T at 1.5 K, which indicates an enhancement of the Pauli limit by a factor of four as compared to that in centrosymmetric conventional superconductors. Using realistic tight-binding calculations, we reveal that this unusual behaviour is due to an inter-valley pairing that is symmetrically protected by Zeeman-type spin-valley locking against external magnetic fields. Our study sheds a new light on the interplay of inversion asymmetry with SOI in confined geometries, and its unprecedented role in superconductivity.