Highly Tunable Nonlinear Hall Effects Induced by Spin-Orbit Couplings in Strained Polar Transition-Metal Dichalcogenides

Recently, signatures of nonlinear Hall effects induced by Berry-curvature dipoles have been found in atomically thin 1T^'/Td-WTe₂. In this paper, we show that in strained polar transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) with $2H$ structures, Berry-curvature dipoles created by spin degrees of freedom lead to strong nonlinear Hall effects. Under an easily accessible uniaxial strain of order 0.2%, strong nonlinear Hall signals, characterized by a Berry-curvature dipole on the order of 10.2em0ex, arise in electron-doped polar TMDs such as MoSSe, and this is easily detectable experimentally. Moreover, the magnitude and sign of the nonlinear Hall current can be easily tuned by electric gating and strain. These properties can be used to distinguish nonlinear Hall effects from classical mechanisms such as ratchet effects. Importantly, our system provides a potential scheme for building electrically switchable energy-harvesting rectifiers.