Momentum-Dark Intervalley Exciton in Monolayer Tungsten Diselenide Brightened via Chiral Phonon

Chiral Phonons: Prediction, Verification, and Application

Chirality as an asymmetric property is prevalent in nature. In physics, the chirality of the elementary particles that make up matter has been widely studied and discussed, and nowadays, the concept has developed into the field of phonons. As an important fundamental excitation in condensed matter physics, phonons are traditionally considered to be linearly polarized and nonchiral. However, in recent years, the chirality of phonons has been revealed and further experimentally verified. The discovery has triggered a series of new explorations and developments in phonon-related physical processes. This Mini-Review provides an overview of the theoretical prediction of chiral phonons and multiple experimental detection methods and highlights the current key issues in the application of chiral phonons in different fields.

Core/Shell-Like Localized Emission at Atomically Thin Semiconductor-Au Interface

Localized emission in atomically thin semiconductors has sparked significant interest as single-photon sources. Despite comprehensive studies into the correlation between localized strain and exciton emission, the impacts of charge transfer on nanobubble emission remains elusive. Here, we report the observation of core/shell-like localized emission from monolayer WSe2 nanobubbles at room temperature through near-field studies. By altering the electronic junction between monolayer WSe2 and the Au substrate, one can effectively adjust the semiconductor to metal junction from a Schottky to an Ohmic junction. Through concurrent analysis of topography, potential, tip-enhanced photoluminescence, and a piezo response force microscope, we attribute the core/shell-like emissions to strong piezoelectric potential aided by induced polarity at the WSe2-Au Schottky interface which results in spatial confinement of the excitons. Our findings present a new approach for manipulating charge confinement and engineering localized emission within atomically thin semiconductor nanobubbles. These insights hold implications for advancing the nano and quantum photonics with low-dimensional semiconductors.

Demonstration of Two-Dimensional Exciton Complex Palette

Exciton complexes in two-dimensional semiconductors, encompassing bright and dark excitons, biexcitons, and defect-bound excitons, have shown significant potential across a wide range of research areas. These applications range from exploring quantum many-body phenomena to developing nonclassical light sources and quantum transport devices. To fully leverage their dynamic and interactive properties and extend the capabilities of excitonic devices, realizing systematic engineering and mixing of the exciton complexes are crucial. Unlike conventional material methods, which often lead to undesired changes in the electronic band structure and binding energy, optical methods provide a means to manipulate the radiative decay dynamics of individual exciton complexes in a purely environmental manner. Here, we employ a specialized photonic platform, analogous to an artist's palette, to arrange and mix exciton complexes on an identical two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide medium. Essentially, a gradient thickness mirror (GTM) continuously tunes the local distribution of optical vacuum field interference. The GTM platform enables us to create and examine five distinct compositions of the exciton complexes of the WSe2 monolayer and their contributions to the photoluminescence spectrum. Moreover, the exciton complex palette facilitates the observation of dark and defect-bound excitons, even at high temperatures of 70 K, and its performance can be further managed by simple postprocessing manipulations.

Trion Photoluminescence and Trion Stability in Atomically Thin Semiconductors

The optical response of doped monolayer semiconductors is governed by trions, i.e. photoexcited electron-hole pairs bound to doping charges. While their photoluminescence (PL) signatures have been identified in experiments, a microscopic model consistently capturing bright and dark trion peaks is still lacking. In this work, we derive a generalized trion PL formula on a quantum-mechanical footing, considering direct and phonon-assisted recombination mechanisms. We show the trion energy landscape in WSe_{2} by solving the trion Schrödinger equation. We reveal that the mass imbalance between equal charges results in less stable trions exhibiting a small binding energy and, interestingly, a large energetic offset from exciton peaks in PL spectra. Furthermore, we compute the temperature-dependent PL spectra for n- and p-doped monolayers and predict yet unobserved signatures originating from trions with an electron at the Λ point. Our work presents an important step toward a microscopic understanding of the internal structure of trions determining their stability and optical fingerprint.

Phonon Chirality Manipulation Mechanism in Transition-Metal Dichalcogenide Interlayer-Sliding Ferroelectrics

As an ideal platform, both the theoretical prediction and first experimental verification of chiral phonons are based on transition-metal dichalcogenide materials. The manipulation of phonon chirality in these materials will have a profound effect on the study of chiral phonons. In this work, we utilize the sliding ferroelectric effect to realize the phonon chirality manipulation mechanism in transition-metal dichalcogenide materials. Based on first-principles calculations, we find the different manipulation effects of interlayer sliding on the phonon chirality and Berry curvature in bilayer and four-layer MoS2 sliding ferroelectrics. These further affect the phonon angular momentum and magnetization under a temperature gradient and the phonon Hall effect under a magnetic field. Our work connects two emerging fields and opens up a new route to manipulating phonon chirality in transition-metal dichalcogenide materials through the sliding ferroelectric mechanism.

Large effective magnetic fields from chiral phonons in rare-earth halides

Time-reversal symmetry (TRS) is pivotal for materials' optical, magnetic, topological, and transport properties. Chiral phonons, characterized by atoms rotating unidirectionally around their equilibrium positions, generate dynamic lattice structures that break TRS. Here, we report that coherent chiral phonons, driven by circularly polarized terahertz light pulses, polarize the paramagnetic spins in cerium fluoride in a manner similar to that of a quasi-static magnetic field on the order of 1 tesla. Through time-resolved Faraday rotation and Kerr ellipticity, we found that the transient magnetization is only excited by pulses resonant with phonons, proportional to the angular momentum of the phonons, and growing with magnetic susceptibility at cryogenic temperatures. The observation quantitatively agrees with our spin-phonon coupling model and may enable new routes to investigating ultrafast magnetism, energy-efficient spintronics, and nonequilibrium phases of matter with broken TRS.

Weyl Phonons in Chiral Crystals

Chirality is an indispensable concept that pervades fundamental science and nature, manifesting itself in diverse forms, e.g., quasiparticles, and crystal structures. Of particular interest are Weyl phonons carrying specific Chern numbers and chiral phonons doing circular motions. Up to now, they have been studied independently and the interpretations of chirality seem to be different in these two concepts, impeding our understanding. Here, we demonstrate that they are entangled in chiral crystals. Employing a typical chiral crystal of elementary tellurium (Te) as a case study, we expound on the intrinsic relationship between Chern number of Weyl phonons and pseudoangular momentum (PAM, lph) of chiral phonons. We propose Raman scattering as a new technique to demonstrate the existence of Weyl phonons in Te, by detecting the chirality-induced energy splitting between the two constituent chiral phonon branches for Weyl phonons. Moreover, we also observe the obstructed phonon surface states for the first time.

Vibrational Dichroism of Chiral Valley Phonons

Valley degrees of freedom in transition metal dichalcogenides thoroughly influence electron-phonon coupling and its nonequilibrium dynamics. We conducted a first-principles study of the quantum kinetics of chiral phonons following valley-selective carrier excitation with circularly polarized light. Our numerical investigations treat the ultrafast dynamics of electrons and phonons on equal footing within a parameter-free ab initio framework. We report the emergence of valley-polarized phonon populations in monolayer MoS2 that can be selectively excited at either the K or K' valleys depending on the light helicity. The resulting vibrational state is characterized by a distinctive chirality, which lifts time-reversal symmetry of the lattice on transient time scales. We show that chiral valley phonons can further lead to fingerprints of vibrational dichroism detectable by ultrafast diffuse scattering and persist beyond 10 ps. The valley polarization of nonequilibrium phonon populations could be exploited as an information carrier, thereby extending the paradigm of valleytronics to the domain of vibrational excitations.

Interaction-driven transport of dark excitons in 2D semiconductors with phonon-mediated optical readout

The growing field of quantum information technology requires propagation of information over long distances with efficient readout mechanisms. Excitonic quantum fluids have emerged as a powerful platform for this task due to their straightforward electro-optical conversion. In two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides, the coupling between spin and valley provides exciting opportunities for harnessing, manipulating, and storing bits of information. However, the large inhomogeneity of single layers cannot be overcome by the properties of bright excitons, hindering spin-valley transport. Nonetheless, the rich band structure supports dark excitonic states with strong binding energy and longer lifetime, ideally suited for long-range transport. Here we show that dark excitons can diffuse over several micrometers and prove that this repulsion-driven propagation is robust across non-uniform samples. The long-range propagation of dark states with an optical readout mediated by chiral phonons provides a new concept of excitonic devices for applications in both classical and quantum information technology.

Strain control of hybridization between dark and localized excitons in a 2D semiconductor

Mechanical strain is a powerful tuning knob for excitons, Coulomb-bound electron-hole complexes dominating optical properties of two-dimensional semiconductors. While the strain response of bright free excitons is broadly understood, the behaviour of dark free excitons (long-lived excitations that generally do not couple to light due to spin and momentum conservation) or localized excitons related to defects remains mostly unexplored. Here, we study the strain behaviour of these fragile many-body states on pristine suspended WSe₂ kept at cryogenic temperatures. We find that under the application of strain, dark and localized excitons in monolayer WSe₂-a prototypical 2D semiconductor-are brought into energetic resonance, forming a new hybrid state that inherits the properties of the constituent species. The characteristics of the hybridized state, including an order-of-magnitude enhanced light/matter coupling, avoided-crossing energy shifts, and strain tunability of many-body interactions, are all supported by first-principles calculations. The hybridized excitons reported here may play a critical role in the operation of single quantum emitters based on WSe₂. Furthermore, the techniques we developed may be used to fingerprint unidentified excitonic states.

K-point longitudinal acoustic phonons are responsible for ultrafast intervalley scattering in monolayer MoSe2

In transition metal dichalcogenides, valley depolarization through intervalley carrier scattering by zone-edge phonons is often unavoidable. Although valley depolarization processes related to various acoustic phonons have been suggested, their optical verification is still vague due to nearly degenerate phonon frequencies on acoustic phonon branches at zone-edge momentums. Here we report an unambiguous phonon momentum determination of the longitudinal acoustic (LA) phonons at the K point, which are responsible for the ultrafast valley depolarization in monolayer MoSe₂. Using sub-10-fs-resolution pump-probe spectroscopy, we observed coherent phonons signals at both even and odd-orders of zone-edge LA mode involved in intervalley carrier scattering process. Our phonon-symmetry analysis and first-principles calculations reveal that only the LA phonon at the K point, as opposed to the M point, can produce experimental odd-order LA phonon signals from its nonlinear optical modulation. This work will provide momentum-resolved descriptions of phonon-carrier intervalley scattering processes in valleytronic materials.

Valley depolarization processes in 2D transition metal dichalcogenides have been linked to acoustic phonons, but optical verification is ambiguous, due to the nearly degenerate acoustic phonon frequencies at the zone-edge. Here, the authors determine the phonon momentum of the longitudinal acoustic (LA) phonons at the K point as responsible for the ultrafast valley depolarization in monolayer MoSe₂.

Electrically Switchable Intervalley Excitons with Strong Two-Phonon Scattering in Bilayer WSe2

We report the observation of QΓ intervalley exciton in bilayer WSe₂ devices encapsulated by boron nitride. The QΓ exciton resides at ∼18 meV below the QK exciton. The QΓ and QK excitons exhibit different Stark shifts under an out-of-plane electric field due to their different interlayer dipole moments. By controlling the electric field, we can switch their energy ordering and control which exciton dominates the luminescence of bilayer WSe₂. Remarkably, both QΓ and QK excitons exhibit unusually strong two-phonon replicas, which are comparable to or even stronger than the one-phonon replicas. By detailed theoretical simulation, we reveal the existence of numerous (≥14) two-phonon scattering paths involving (nearly) resonant exciton-phonon scattering in bilayer WSe₂. To our knowledge, such electric-field-switchable intervalley excitons with strong two-phonon replicas have not been found in any other two-dimensional semiconductors. These make bilayer WSe₂ a distinctive valleytronic material with potential novel applications.

Bright excitonic multiplexing mediated by dark exciton transition in two-dimensional TMDCs at room temperature

2D-semiconductors with strong light-matter interaction are attractive materials for integrated and tunable optical devices. Here, we demonstrate room-temperature wavelength multiplexing of the two-primary bright excitonic channels (A_b-, B_b-) in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) arising from a dark exciton mediated transition. We present how tuning dark excitons via an out-of-plane electric field cedes the system equilibrium from one excitonic channel to the other, encoding the field polarization into wavelength information. In addition, we demonstrate how such exciton multiplexing is dictated by thermal-scattering by performing temperature dependent photoluminescence measurements. Finally, we demonstrate experimentally and theoretically how excitonic mixing can explain preferable decay through dark states in MoX₂ in comparison with WX₂ monolayers. Such field polarization-based manipulation of excitonic transitions can pave the way for novel photonic device architectures.

Chiral Phonon Diode Effect in Chiral Crystals

The diode effect means that carriers can only flow in one direction but not the other. While diode effects for electron charge, spin, or photon have been widely discussed, it remains a question whether a chiral phonon diode can be realized, which utilizes the chiral degree of freedom of lattice vibrations. In this work, we reveal an intrinsic connection between the chiralities of a crystal structure and its phonon excitations, which naturally leads to the chiral phonon diode effect in chiral crystals. At a certain frequency, phonons with a definite chirality can propagate only in one direction but not the opposite. We demonstrate the idea in concrete materials including bulk Te and α-quartz (SiO₂). Our work discovers the fundamental physics of chirality coupling between different levels of a system, and the predicted effect will provide a new route to control phonon transport and design information devices.

Manipulation of Exciton Dynamics in Single-Layer WSe2 Using a Toroidal Dielectric Metasurface

Recent advances in emerging atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenide semiconductors with strong light-matter interactions and tunable optical properties provide novel approaches for realizing new material functionalities. Coupling two-dimensional semiconductors with all-dielectric resonant nanostructures represents an especially attractive opportunity for manipulating optical properties in both the near-field and far-field regimes. Here, by integrating single-layer WSe₂ and titanium oxide (TiO₂) dielectric metasurfaces with toroidal resonances, we realized robust exciton emission enhancement over 1 order of magnitude at both room and low temperatures. Furthermore, we could control exciton dynamics and annihilation by using temperature to tailor the spectral overlap of excitonic and toroidal resonances, allowing us to selectively enhance the Purcell effect. Our results provide rich physical insight into the strong light-matter interactions in single-layer TMDs coupled with toroidal dielectric metasurfaces, with important implications for optoelectronics and photonics applications.

Dielectric Engineering for Manipulating Exciton Transport in Semiconductor Monolayers

The dielectric screening from the disordered media surrounding atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) monolayers modifies the effective defect energy levels and thereby the transport and energy dynamics of excitons. In this work, we study this effect in WSe₂ monolayers for different combinations of surrounding dielectric media. Specifically, we study the source of the anomalous diffusion of excitons in the WSe₂ monolayer and attribute the anomaly to the modification of the energy distribution of defect states in different disordered dielectric environments. We use this insight to manipulate exciton transport by engineering the dielectric environment using a graphene/hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) moiré superlattice. Finally, we observe that the effect of dielectric disorder is even more significant at high excitation fluences, contributing to the nonequilibrium phonon drag effect. These results provide an important step toward achieving control over the exciton energy transport for next-generation opto-excitonic devices.

Gate-tunable chiral phonons in low-buckled group-IVA monolayers

We investigate the electric response of chiral phonons on the low-buckled group-IVA monolayers by performing first-principles calculations. The vertical electric field breaks the degeneracy of phonon modes at high-symmetry ±Kpoints of the phonon Brillouin zone, and the size of the phononic gap is proportional to the strength of the electric field. The gapped phonon modes at ±Kpossess chiralities with considerable phonon circular polarizations and discrete phonon pseudoangular momenta. The chiralities of phonons are robust against the variation of the field strength, but reversed by changing the field direction. Electric control of chiral phonons adds a new dimension to the study of chiral phonons, which has potential use in the design of phononic and valley devices.

Propagating Chiral Phonons in Three-Dimensional Materials

Chiral phonons were initially proposed and experimentally verified in two-dimensional (2D) systems. Their intriguing effects have generated profound impacts on multiple research fields. However, all chiral phonons reported to date are constrained to be local, in the sense that their group velocities vanish identically. Here, we propose the concept of propagating 3D chiral phonons, which can transport the information on chirality and angular momentum. Guided by the necessary conditions and using first-principles calculations, we demonstrate their existence in WN₂. The chirality, group velocity, and pseudoangular momentum are analyzed. Based on their selective coupling with valley electrons and photons, we propose an experimental setup to detect the unique feature of propagating chiral phonons. Our work endows chiral phonons with a crucial character-the ability to propagate and transport quantized information, which creates a new research direction and opens up the possibility to design novel phononic quantum devices.

Excitonic Complexes in n-Doped WS2 Monolayer

We investigate the origin of emission lines apparent in the low-temperature photoluminescence spectra of n-doped WS₂ monolayer embedded in hexagonal BN layers using external magnetic fields and first-principles calculations. Apart from the neutral A exciton line, all observed emission lines are related to the negatively charged excitons. Consequently, we identify emissions due to both the bright (singlet and triplet) and dark (spin- and momentum-forbidden) negative trions as well as the phonon replicas of the latter optically inactive complexes. The semidark trions and negative biexcitons are distinguished. On the basis of their experimentally extracted and theoretically calculated g-factors, we identify three distinct families of emissions due to exciton complexes in WS₂: bright, intravalley, and intervalley dark. The g-factors of the spin-split subbands in both the conduction and valence bands are also determined.

Intrinsic donor-bound excitons in ultraclean monolayer semiconductors

The monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides are an emergent semiconductor platform exhibiting rich excitonic physics with coupled spin-valley degree of freedom and optical addressability. Here, we report a new series of low energy excitonic emission lines in the photoluminescence spectrum of ultraclean monolayer WSe2. These excitonic satellites are composed of three major peaks with energy separations matching known phonons, and appear only with electron doping. They possess homogenous spatial and spectral distribution, strong power saturation, and anomalously long population (>6 µs) and polarization lifetimes (>100 ns). Resonant excitation of the free inter- and intravalley bright trions leads to opposite optical orientation of the satellites, while excitation of the free dark trion resonance suppresses the satellites' photoluminescence. Defect-controlled crystal synthesis and scanning tunneling microscopy measurements provide corroboration that these features are dark excitons bound to dilute donors, along with associated phonon replicas. Our work opens opportunities to engineer homogenous single emitters and explore collective quantum optical phenomena using intrinsic donor-bound excitons in ultraclean 2D semiconductors.

Neutral and charged dark excitons in monolayer WS2

Low temperature and polarization resolved magneto-photoluminescence experiments are used to investigate the properties of dark excitons and dark trions in a monolayer of WS2 encapsulated in hexagonal BN (hBN). We find that this system is an n-type doped semiconductor and that dark trions dominate the emission spectrum. In line with previous studies on WSe2, we identify the Coulomb exchange interaction coupled neutral dark and grey excitons through their polarization properties, while an analogous effect is not observed for dark trions. Applying the magnetic field in both perpendicular and parallel configurations with respect to the monolayer plane, we determine the g-factor of dark trions to be g ∼ -8.6. Their decay rate is close to 0.5 ns, more than 2 orders of magnitude longer than that of bright excitons.

Up- and Down-Conversion between Intra- and Intervalley Excitons in Waveguide Coupled Monolayer WSe2

The presence of two spin-split valleys in monolayer (1L) transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) semiconductors supports versatile exciton species classified by their spin and valley quantum numbers. While the spin-0 intravalley exciton, known as the "bright" exciton, is readily observable, other types of excitons, such as the spin-1 intravalley (spin-dark) and spin-0 intervalley (momentum-dark) excitons, are more difficult to access. Here we develop a waveguide coupled 1L tungsten diselenide (WSe₂) device to probe these exciton species. In particular, TM coupling to the atomic layer's out-of-plane dipole moments enabled us to not only efficiently collect but also resonantly populate the spin-1 dark excitons, promising for developing devices with long valley lifetimes. Our work reveals several upconversion processes that bring out an intricate coupling network linking spin-0 and spin-1 intra- and intervalley excitons, demonstrating that intervalley scattering and spin-flip are very common processes in the atomic layer. These experimental results deepen our understanding of tungsten diselenide exciton physics and illustrate that planar photonic devices are capable of harnessing versatile exciton species in TMD semiconductors.

Phonon-exciton Interactions in WSe2 under a quantizing magnetic field

Strong many-body interaction in two-dimensional transitional metal dichalcogenides provides a unique platform to study the interplay between different quasiparticles, such as prominent phonon replica emission and modified valley-selection rules. A large out-of-plane magnetic field is expected to modify the exciton-phonon interactions by quantizing excitons into discrete Landau levels, which is largely unexplored. Here, we observe the Landau levels originating from phonon-exciton complexes and directly probe exciton-phonon interaction under a quantizing magnetic field. Phonon-exciton interaction lifts the inter-Landau-level transition selection rules for dark trions, manifested by a distinctively different Landau fan pattern compared to bright trions. This allows us to experimentally extract the effective mass of both holes and electrons. The onset of Landau quantization coincides with a significant increase of the valley-Zeeman shift, suggesting strong many-body effects on the phonon-exciton interaction. Our work demonstrates monolayer WSe2 as an intriguing playground to study phonon-exciton interactions and their interplay with charge, spin, and valley.

Multipath Optical Recombination of Intervalley Dark Excitons and Trions in Monolayer WSe_{2}

Excitons and trions (or exciton polarons) in transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are known to decay predominantly through intravalley transitions. Electron-hole recombination across different valleys can also play a significant role in the excitonic dynamics, but intervalley transitions are rarely observed in monolayer TMDs, because they violate the conservation of momentum. Here we reveal the intervalley recombination of dark excitons and trions through more than one path in monolayer WSe_{2}. We observe the intervalley dark excitons, which can recombine by the assistance of defect scattering or chiral-phonon emission. We also reveal that a trion can decay in two distinct paths-through intravalley or intervalley electron-hole recombination-into two different final valley states. Although these two paths are energy degenerate, we can distinguish them by lifting the valley degeneracy under a magnetic field. In addition, the intra- and inter-valley trion transitions are coupled to zone-center and zone-corner chiral phonons, respectively, to produce distinct phonon replicas. The observed multipath optical decays of dark excitons and trions provide insight into the internal quantum structure of trions and the complex excitonic interactions with defects and chiral phonons in monolayer valley semiconductors.