No Arabic abstract
We investigate the excitonic dynamics in MoSe2 monolayer and bulk samples by femtosecond transient absorption microscopy. Excitons are resonantly injected by a 750-nm and 100-fs laser pulse, and are detected by a probe pulse tuned in the range of 790 - 820 nm. We observe a strong density-dependent initial decay of the exciton population in monolayers, which can be well described by the exciton-exciton annihilation. Such a feature is not observed in the bulk under comparable conditions. We also observe the saturated absorption induced by exciton phase-space filling in both monolayers and the bulk, which indicates their potential applications as saturable absorbers.
The rise of quantum science and technologies motivates photonics research to seek new platforms with strong light-matter interactions to facilitate quantum behaviors at moderate light intensities. One promising platform to reach such strong light-matter interacting regimes is offered by polaritonic metasurfaces, which represent ultrathin artificial media structured on nano-scale and designed to support polaritons - half-light half-matter quasiparticles. Topological polaritons, or topolaritons, offer an ideal platform in this context, with unique properties stemming from topological phases of light strongly coupled with matter. Here we explore polaritonic metasurfaces based on 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) supporting in-plane polarized exciton resonances as a promising platform for topological polaritonics. We enable a spin-Hall topolaritonic phase by strongly coupling valley polarized in-plane excitons in a TMD monolayer with a suitably engineered all-dielectric topological photonic metasurface. We first show that the strong coupling between topological photonic bands supported by the metasurface and excitonic bands in MoSe2 yields an effective phase winding and transition to a topolaritonic spin-Hall state. We then experimentally realize this phenomenon and confirm the presence of one-way spin-polarized edge topolaritons. Combined with the valley polarization in a MoSe2 monolayer, the proposed system enables a new approach to engage the photonic angular momentum and valley degree of freedom in TMDs, offering a promising platform for photonic/solid-state interfaces for valleytronics and spintronics.
We study experimentally and theoretically the exciton-phonon interaction in MoSe2 monolayers encapsulated in hexagonal BN, which has an important impact on both optical absorption and emission processes. The exciton transition linewidth down to 1 meV at low temperatures makes it possible to observe high energy tails in absorption and emission extending over several meV, not masked by inhomogeneous broadening. We develop an analytical theory of the exciton-phonon interaction accounting for the deformation potential induced by the longitudinal acoustic phonons, which plays an important role in exciton formation. The theory allows fitting absorption and emission spectra and permits estimating the deformation potential in MoSe2 monolayers. We underline the reasons why exciton-phonon coupling is much stronger in two-dimensional transition metal dichalcodenides as compared to conventional quantum well structures. The importance of exciton-phonon interactions is further highlighted by the observation of a multitude of Raman features in the photoluminescence excitation experiments.
Monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide semiconductors, with versatile experimentally accessible exciton species, offer an interesting platform for investigating the interaction between excitons and a Fermi sea of charges. Using hexagonal boron nitride encapsulated monolayer MoSe2, we study the impact of charge density tuning on the ground and excited Rydberg states in the atomic layer. Consistent excitonpolaron behavior is revealed in both photoluminescence and reflection spectra of the A exciton 1s (A:1s) Rydberg state, in contrast to previous studies. The A:2s Rydberg state provides an opportunity to understand such interactions with greatly reduced exciton binding energy. We found that the impact of the Fermi sea becomes much more dramatic. With a photoluminescence upconversion technique, we further verify the 2s polaron-like behavior for the repulsive branch of B:2s exciton whose energy is well above the bare bandgap. Our studies show that the polaron-like interaction features are quite generic and highly robust, offering key insights into the dressed manybody state in a Fermi sea.
We experimentally demonstrate hot exciton transport in h-BN encapsulated WSe2 monolayers via spatially and temporally resolved photoluminescence measurements at room temperature. We show that the nonlinear evolution of the mean squared displacement of the non-resonantly excited hot exciton gas is primarily due to the relaxation of its excess kinetic energy and is characterized by a density-dependent fast expansion that converges to a slower, constant rate expansion. We also observe saturation of the hot exciton gas expansion rate at high excitation densities due to the balance between Auger-assisted hot exciton generation and the phonon-assisted hot exciton relaxation processes.
Transitions metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are direct semiconductors in the atomic monolayer (ML) limit with fascinating optical and spin-valley properties. The strong optical absorption of up to 20 % for a single ML is governed by excitons, electron-hole pairs bound by Coulomb attraction. Excited exciton states in MoSe$_2$ and MoTe$_2$ monolayers have so far been elusive due to their low oscillator strength and strong inhomogeneous broadening. Here we show that encapsulation in hexagonal boron nitride results in emission line width of the A:1$s$ exciton below 1.5 meV and 3 meV in our MoSe$_2$ and MoTe$_2$ monolayer samples, respectively. This allows us to investigate the excited exciton states by photoluminescence upconversion spectroscopy for both monolayer materials. The excitation laser is tuned into resonance with the A:1$s$ transition and we observe emission of excited exciton states up to 200 meV above the laser energy. We demonstrate bias control of the efficiency of this non-linear optical process. At the origin of upconversion our model calculations suggest an exciton-exciton (Auger) scattering mechanism specific to TMD MLs involving an excited conduction band thus generating high energy excitons with small wave-vectors. The optical transitions are further investigated by white light reflectivity, photoluminescence excitation and resonant Raman scattering confirming their origin as excited excitonic states in monolayer thin semiconductors.