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Magnetochiral Anisotropy in Josephson Diode Effect of All-Metallic Lateral Junctions with Interfacial Rashba Spin-Orbit Coupling

Maximilian Mangold1,2, Lorenz Bauriedl3,4, Johanna Berger3,4, Chang Yu-Cheng5, Thomas N. G. Meier1,2, Matthias Kronseder3,4, Pertti Hakonen6, Christian H. Back1,2, Christoph Strunk3,4 et al.

Dhavala Suri1,7,*

  • *Contact author: dsuri@iisc.ac.in
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 206002 – Published 20 May, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/n9g9-99wl

Abstract

We explore the role of interfacial Rashba spin-orbit coupling (SOC) for the Josephson diode effect in all-metal diffusive Josephson junctions. Devices with Fe/Pt and Cu/Pt weak links between Nb leads reveal a Josephson diode effect in an in-plane magnetic field with magnetochiral anisotropy according to the point symmetry of Rashba SOC. The Rashba SOC originates from inversion symmetry breaking at the metal-metal interfaces. A control sample with a plain Cu layer as weak link, in contrast, exhibits an axis-symmetric diode effect. The Fraunhofer patterns display an apparent inverted hysteresis that can be traced back to stray fields resulting from the conventional hysteretic vortex pinning in the Nb contacts.

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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 206002– Published 20 May, 2026
  • Received 26 October 2025
  • Accepted 24 April 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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