No Arabic abstract
Optical absorption is one of fundamental light-matter interactions. In most materials, optical absorption is a weak perturbation to the light. In this regime, absorption and emission are irreversible, incoherent processes due to strong damping. Excitons in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides, however, interact strongly with light, leading to optical absorption in the non-perturbative regime where coherent re-emission of the light has to be considered. Between the incoherent and coherent limits, we show that a robust critical coupling condition exists, leading to perfect optical absorption. Up to 99.6% absorption is measured in a sub-nanometer thick MoSe2 monolayer placed in front of a mirror. The perfect absorption is controlled by tuning the exciton-phonon, exciton-exciton, and exciton-photon interactions by temperature, pulsed laser excitation, and a movable mirror, respectively. Our work suggests unprecedented opportunities for engineering exciton-light interactions using two-dimensional atomically thin crystals, enabling novel photonic applications including ultrafast light modulators and sensitive optical sensing.
Two-dimensional (2D) materials have emerged as promising candidates for miniaturized optoelectronic devices, due to their strong inelastic interactions with light. On the other hand, a miniaturized optical system also requires strong elastic light-matter interactions to control the flow of light. Here, we report giant optical path length (OPL) from a single-layer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), which is around one order of magnitude larger than that from a single-layer graphene. Using such giant OPL to engineer the phase front of optical beams, we demonstrated, to the best of our knowledge, the worlds thinnest optical lens consisting of a few layers of MoS2 less than 6.3 nm thick. Moreover, we show that MoS2 has much better dielectric response than good conductor (like gold) and other dielectric materials (like Si, SiO2 or graphene). By taking advantage of the giant elastic scattering efficiency in ultra-thin high-index 2D materials, we demonstrated high-efficiency gratings based on a single- or few-layers of MoS2. The capability of manipulating the flow of light in 2D materials opens an exciting avenue towards unprecedented miniaturization of optical components and the integration of advanced optical functionalities.
Van der Waals junctions of two-dimensional materials with an atomically sharp interface open up unprecedented opportunities to design and study functional heterostructures. Semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides have shown tremendous potential for future applications due to their unique electronic properties and strong light-matter interaction. However, many important optoelectronic applications, such as broadband photodetection, are severely hindered by their limited spectral range and reduced light absorption. Here, we present a p-g-n heterostructure formed by sandwiching graphene with a gapless bandstructure and wide absorption spectrum in an atomically thin p-n junction to overcome these major limitations. We have successfully demonstrated a MoS2-graphene-WSe2 heterostructure for broadband photodetection in the visible to short-wavelength infrared range at room temperature that exhibits competitive device performance, including a specific detectivity of up to 1011 Jones in the near-infrared region. Our results pave the way toward the implementation of atomically thin heterostructures for broadband and sensitive optoelectronic applications.
The emergence of two-dimensional crystals has revolutionized modern solid-state physics. From a fundamental point of view, the enhancement of charge carrier correlations has sparked enormous research activities in the transport- and quantum optics communities. One of the most intriguing effects, in this regard, is the bosonic condensation and spontaneous coherence of many-particle complexes. Here, we find compelling evidence of bosonic condensation of exciton-polaritons emerging from an atomically thin crystal of MoSe2 embedded in a dielectric microcavity under optical pumping. The formation of the condensate manifests itself in a sudden increase of luminescence intensity in a threshold-like manner, and a significant spin-polarizability in an externally applied magnetic field. Spatial coherence is mapped out via highly resolved real-space interferometry, revealing a spatially extended condensate. Our device represents a decisive step towards the implementation of coherent light-sources based on atomically thin crystals, as well as non-linear, valleytronic coherent devices.
Atomically thin PtSe2 films have attracted extensive research interests for potential applications in high-speed electronics, spintronics and photodetectors. Obtaining high quality, single crystalline thin films with large size is critical. Here we report the first successful layer-by-layer growth of high quality PtSe2 films by molecular beam epitaxy. Atomically thin films from 1 ML to 22 ML have been grown and characterized by low-energy electron diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray photoemission spectroscopy. Moreover, a systematic thickness dependent study of the electronic structure is revealed by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), and helical spin texture is revealed by spin-ARPES. Our work provides new opportunities for growing large size single crystalline films for investigating the physical properties and potential applications of PtSe2.
Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), together with other two-dimensional (2D) materials have attracted great interest due to the unique optical and electrical properties of atomically thin layers. In order to fulfill their potential, developing large-area growth and understanding the properties of TMDCs have become crucial. Here, we used molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) to grow atomically thin MoSe$_2$ on GaAs(111)B. No intermediate compounds were detected at the interface of as-grown films. Careful optimization of the growth temperature can result in the growth of highly aligned films with only two possible crystalline orientations due to broken inversion symmetry. As-grown films can be transferred onto insulating substrates allowing their optical and electrical properties to be probed. By using polymer electrolyte gating, we have achieved ambipolar transport in MBE-grown MoSe$_2$. The temperature-dependent transport characteristics can be explained by the 2D variable-range hopping (2D-VRH) model, indicating that the transport is strongly limited by the disorder in the film.