We study the superconducting diode effect (SDE) in an Ising superconductor with broken basal mirror symmetry in a parallel magnetic field. We show that in the presence of a small Rashba spin splitting, ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\text{R}}$, the dominant Ising spin-orbit coupling (${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\text{I}}\gg {\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\text{R}}$) dramatically enhances the SDE efficiency compared to a Rashba superconductor with ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\text{I}}=0$ and the same ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\text{R}}$. The suppression of the SDE for ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\text{I}}=0$ at ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\text{R}}$ much larger than the critical temperature ($T_{\text{c}}$) is accidental. At ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\text{R}}\ll T_{\text{c}}$, the SDE efficiency is small because, to linear order, ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\text{R}}$ can be removed by a gauge transformation. These two factors—the accidental suppression of the SDE at large ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\text{R}}$ and the systematic suppression at small ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\text{R}}$—are eliminated by Ising spin-orbit coupling. As a result, SDE efficiency is substantially enhanced for ${\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\text{I}}\gg {\mathrm{\Delta }}_{\text{R}}\ne 0$.

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• Critical current
• Rashba coupling
• Spin-orbit coupling
• Superconductivity
• Transition metal dichalcogenides
• Two-dimensional electron system