Symmetry-breaking has been known to play a key role in noncentrosymmetric
superconductors with strong spin-orbit-interaction (SOI). The studies, however,
have been so far mainly focused on a particular type of SOI, known as Rashba
SOI, whereby the electron spin is locked to its momentum at a right-angle,
thereby leading to an in-planar helical spin texture. Here we discuss
electric-field-induced superconductivity in molybdenum disulphide (MoS2), which
exhibits a fundamentally different type of intrinsic SOI manifested by an
out-of-plane Zeeman-type spin polarization of energy valleys. We find an upper
critical field of approximately 52 T at 1.5 K, which indicates an enhancement
of the Pauli limit by a factor of four as compared to that in centrosymmetric
conventional superconductors. Using realistic tight-binding calculations, we
reveal that this unusual behaviour is due to an inter-valley pairing that is
symmetrically protected by Zeeman-type spin-valley locking against external
magnetic fields. Our study sheds a new light on the interplay of inversion
asymmetry with SOI in confined geometries, and its unprecedented role in
superconductivity.Comment: 37 pages, 11 figures,
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR15/Session/G11.1