Microscopic model of the doping dependence of line widths in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides

A fully microscopic model of the doping-dependent exciton and trion line widths in the absorption spectra of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides in the low temperature and low doping regime is explored. The approach is based on perturbation theory and avoids the use of phenomenological parameters. In the low-doping regime, we find that the trion line width is relatively insensitive to doping levels while the exciton line width increases monotonically with doping. On the other hand, we argue that the trion line width shows a somewhat stronger temperature dependence. The magnitudes of the line widths are likely to be masked by phonon scattering for $T geq 20$ K in encapsulated samples in the low doping regime. We discuss the breakdown of perturbation theory, which should occur at relatively low doping levels and low temperatures. Our work also paves the way towards understanding a variety of related scattering processes, including impact ionization and Auger scattering in clean 2D samples.