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    Pair mixing induced time-reversal symmetry breaking superconductivity

    Saswata Mandal and Chao-Xing Liu*

    • *Contact author: cxl56@psu.edu

    Phys. Rev. B 114, 094511 – Published 17 August, 2026

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/thfx-vwnh

    Abstract

    Experimental evidence of spontaneous time-reversal (TR) symmetry breaking have been reported for the superconducting ground state in the transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) superconductor 4Hb−TaS2 or chiral molecule intercalated TaS2 hybrid superlattices, and is regarded as evidence of the emergent chiral superconductivity. However, the Tc of these TMD superconductors is at the same order as pristine 1H or 2H-TaS2 that does not show any signature of TR breaking and is believed to be conventional Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer superconductors. To resolve this puzzle, we proposed a type of pair-mixing states that mix the dominant conventional s-wave pairing channel with the subdominant chiral p-wave pairing channel via the finite Cooper pair momentum based on the symmetry analysis of the Ginzburg-Landau theory. Our analysis shows the fourth-order terms in the chiral p-wave channel can lead to a variety of pair-mixing states with spontaneous TR breaking. These TR-breaking superconducting states also reveal zero-field junction-free superconducting diode effect that is observed in chiral molecule intercalated TaS2 superlattices.

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