Influence of exciton-phonons coupling on the exciton binding energy in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the correction of exciton binding energy arising from the exciton-optical phonon coupling in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) using the linear operator and Lee-Low-Pines unitary transformation methods. We take into account not only the exciton coupling with intrinsic longitudinal optical phonon modes but also the surface optical phonon modes induced by polar substrates supporting monolayer TMDs. We find that the exciton binding energies are corrected on a large scale due to these exciton-optical phonon couplings. We discuss the dependences of exciton binding energy on the cut-off wave vector of optical phonon modes, the polarization strength of substrate materials, and the distance between polar substrates and TMDs. These results provide potential explanations for the divergence of the exciton binding energy between the experiment and theory in TMDs.