Observation of long-lived interlayer excitons in monolayer MoSe2-WSe2 heterostructures.

Pasqual Rivera,Jiaqiang Yan,D G Mandrus,Kyle Seyler,Sanfeng Wu,Jason S Ross,Aaron M Jones,Wang Yao,Grant Aivazian,John R Schaibley,Xiaodong Xu,Genevieve Clark,Nirmal J Ghimire,Philip Klement

doi:10.1038/ncomms7242

Abstract

Van der Waals bound heterostructures constructed with two-dimensional materials, such as graphene, boron nitride and transition metal dichalcogenides, have sparked wide interest in device physics and technologies at the two-dimensional limit. One highly coveted heterostructure is that of differing monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides with type-II band alignment, with bound electrons and holes localized in individual monolayers, that is, interlayer excitons. Here, we report the observation of interlayer excitons in monolayer MoSe2-WSe2 heterostructures by photoluminescence and photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy. We find that their energy and luminescence intensity are highly tunable by an applied vertical gate voltage. Moreover, we measure an interlayer exciton lifetime of ~1.8 ns, an order of magnitude longer than intralayer excitons in monolayers. Our work demonstrates optical pumping of interlayer electric polarization, which may provoke further exploration of interlayer exciton condensation, as well as new applications in two-dimensional lasers, light-emitting diodes and photovoltaic devices.

Highlights

Van der Waals bound heterostructures constructed with two-dimensional materials, such as graphene, boron nitride and transition metal dichalcogenides, have sparked wide interest in device physics and technologies at the two-dimensional limit
A fascinating counterpart to gapless graphene is a class of monolayer direct bandgap semiconductors, namely transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs)[6,7,8]
Since the Coulomb binding energy in 2D TMDs is much stronger than in conventional semiconductors, it is possible to realize interlayer excitonic states in van der Waals bound heterobilayers, that is, bound electrons and holes that are localized in different layers

Summary

Introduction

Van der Waals bound heterostructures constructed with two-dimensional materials, such as graphene, boron nitride and transition metal dichalcogenides, have sparked wide interest in device physics and technologies at the two-dimensional limit. Since the Coulomb binding energy in 2D TMDs is much stronger than in conventional semiconductors, it is possible to realize interlayer excitonic states in van der Waals bound heterobilayers, that is, bound electrons and holes that are localized in different layers. Such interlayer excitons have been intensely pursued in bilayer graphene for possible exciton condensation[22], but direct optical observation demonstrating the existence of such excitons is challenging owing to the lack of a sizable bandgap in graphene. Our work shows that monolayer semiconducting HSs are a promising platform for exploring new optoelectronic phenomena

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Results

Conclusion