Shengbiao Sun, Lang Xiao, Chenghao Shen, Bowen Hao, Jia-Peng Peng, Ziye Zhu, Feiyue Wang, Qilin Han +5
Abstract
The superconducting diode effect (SDE), characterized by nonreciprocal dissipationless supercurrent, offers a promising route toward ultralow-power superconducting electronics. Yet most realizations require an external magnetic field, and achieving a large, controllable SDE at zero field remains challenging. Here we report a field-free SDE with an efficiency reaching 35.7% in a van der Waals NbSe/CrBr heterostructure, whose polarity is programmable by magnetic-field history. Unlike conventional mechanisms based on finite-momentum pairing, the SDE originates from the leading symmetry-allowed cubic term odd in Cooper-pair momentum, which yields unequal critical currents while leaving the equilibrium condensate at zero momentum. Remarkably, upon sweeping a perpendicular magnetic field, the diode polarity undergoes nonmonotonic and hysteretic reversals that cannot be explained by Meissner screening or conventional ferromagnetic proximity. Combining transport measurements, micromagnetic simulations, and a generalized Ginzbur-Landau theory, we attribute these unconventional behaviors to layered ferrimagnetism in CrBr