Magnetochiral anisotropy in strained superconducting transition metal dichalcogenides

Abstract

We present a theoretical study of nonreciprocal charge transport in two-dimensional noncentrosymmetric superconductors, focusing on transition-metal dichalcogenide MoS$_2$ as a representative example. In the normal state, the electrical response of a material to the relative orientation of the current and magnetic field is suppressed to leading order in the symmetry-breaking perturbations. In the vicinity of the superconducting transition, magnetochiral anisotropy is strongly enhanced. We consider contributions to the nonreciprocal current originating from order-parameter fluctuations and quantum-interference processes. These terms are linked to higher-order Lifshitz invariants generically allowed in the Ginzburg-Landau free energy of superconductors with broken inversion and time-reversal symmetries. We further show that strain enables additional vector components in the nonlinear current response.