Spin-layer locking of interlayer excitons trapped in moiré potentials

Layer Control of Magneto-Optical Effects and Their Quantization in Spin-Valley Splitting Antiferromagnets

Magneto-optical effects (MOE), interfacing the fundamental interplay between magnetism and light, have served as a powerful probe for magnetic order, band topology, and valley index. Here, based on multiferroic and topological bilayer antiferromagnets (AFMs), we propose a layer control of MOE (L-MOE), which is created and annihilated by layer-stacking or an electric field effect. The key character of L-MOE is the sign-reversible response controlled by ferroelectric polarization, the Néel vector, or the electric field direction. Moreover, the sign-reversible L-MOE can be quantized in topologically insulating AFMs. We reveal that the switchable L-MOE originates from the combined contributions of spin-conserving and spin-flip interband transitions in spin-valley splitting AFMs, a phenomenon not observed in conventional AFMs. Our findings bridge the ancient MOE to the emergent realms of layertronics, valleytronics, and multiferroics and may hold immense potential in these fields.

Simultaneously Regulated Highly Polarized and Long-Lived Valley Excitons in WSe2/GaN Heterostructures

Interlayer excitons, with prolonged lifetimes and tunability, hold potential for advanced optoelectronics. Previous research on the interlayer excitons has been dominated by two-dimensional heterostructures. Here, we construct WSe2/GaN composite heterostructures, in which the doping concentration of GaN and the twist angle of bilayer WSe2 are employed as two ingredients for the manipulation of exciton behaviors and polarizations. The exciton energies in monolayer WSe2/GaN can be regulated continuously by the doping levels of the GaN substrate, and a remarkable increase in the valley polarizations is achieved. Especially in a heterostructure with 4°-twisted bilayer WSe2, a maximum polarization of 38.9% with a long lifetime is achieved for the interlayer exciton. Theoretical calculations reveal that the large polarization and long lifetime are attributed to the high exciton binding energy and large spin flipping energy during depolarization in bilayer WSe2/GaN. This work introduces a distinctive member of the interlayer exciton with a high degree of polarization and a long lifetime.

Ultrafast Umklapp-assisted electron-phonon cooling in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene

Understanding electron-phonon interactions is fundamentally important and has crucial implications for device applications. However, in twisted bilayer graphene near the magic angle, this understanding is currently lacking. Here, we study electron-phonon coupling using time- and frequency-resolved photovoltage measurements as direct and complementary probes of phonon-mediated hot-electron cooling. We find a remarkable speedup in cooling of twisted bilayer graphene near the magic angle: The cooling time is a few picoseconds from room temperature down to 5 kelvin, whereas in pristine bilayer graphene, cooling to phonons becomes much slower for lower temperatures. Our experimental and theoretical analysis indicates that this ultrafast cooling is a combined effect of superlattice formation with low-energy moiré phonons, spatially compressed electronic Wannier orbitals, and a reduced superlattice Brillouin zone. This enables efficient electron-phonon Umklapp scattering that overcomes electron-phonon momentum mismatch. These results establish twist angle as an effective way to control energy relaxation and electronic heat flow.

Strongly Localized Moiré Exciton in Twisted Homobilayers

Artificially molding exciton flux is the cornerstone for developing promising excitonic devices. In the emerging hetero/homobilayers, the spatial separated charges prolong exciton lifetimes and create out-plane dipoles, facilitating electrically control exciton flux on a large scale, and the nanoscale periodic moiré potentials arising from twist-angle or/and lattice mismatch can substantially alter exciton dynamics, which are mainly proved in the heterostructures. However, the spatially indirect excitons dynamics in homobilayers without lattice mismatch remain elusive. Here the nonequilibrium dynamics of indirect exciton in homobilayers are systematically investigated. The homobilayers with slightly twist-angle can induce a deep moiré potential (>50 meV) in the energy landscape of indirect excitons, resulting in a strongly localized moiré excitons insulating the transport dynamics from phonons and disorder. These findings provide insights into the exciton dynamics and many-body physics in moiré superlattices modulated energy landscape, with implications for designing excitonic devices operating at room temperature.

Influence of Atomic Relaxations on the Moiré Flat Band Wave Functions in Antiparallel Twisted Bilayer WS2

Twisting bilayers of transition metal dichalcogenides gives rise to a moiré potential resulting in flat bands with localized wave functions and enhanced correlation effects. In this work, scanning tunneling microscopy is used to image a WS2 bilayer twisted approximately 3° off the antiparallel alignment. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy reveals localized states in the vicinity of the valence band onset, which is observed to occur first in regions with S-on-S Bernal stacking. In contrast, density functional theory calculations on twisted bilayers that have been relaxed in vacuum predict the highest-lying flat valence band to be localized in regions of AA' stacking. However, agreement with experiment is recovered when the calculations are performed on bilayers in which the atomic displacements from the unrelaxed positions have been reduced, reflecting the influence of the substrate and finite temperature. This demonstrates the delicate interplay of atomic relaxations and the electronic structure of twisted bilayer materials.

Tuning and exploiting interlayer coupling in two-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures

Two-dimensional (2D) layered materials can stack into new material systems, with van der Waals (vdW) interaction between the adjacent constituent layers. This stacking process of 2D atomic layers creates a new degree of freedom-interlayer interface between two adjacent layers-that can be independently studied and tuned from the intralayer degree of freedom. In such heterostructures (HSs), the physical properties are largely determined by the vdW interaction between the individual layers,i.e.interlayer coupling, which can be effectively tuned by a number of means. In this review, we summarize and discuss a number of such approaches, including stacking order, electric field, intercalation, and pressure, with both their experimental demonstrations and theoretical predictions. A comprehensive overview of the modulation on structural, optical, electrical, and magnetic properties by these four approaches are also presented. We conclude this review by discussing several prospective research directions in 2D HSs field, including fundamental physics study, property tuning techniques, and future applications.

Interlayer donor-acceptor pair excitons in MoSe2/WSe2 moiré heterobilayer

Localized interlayer excitons (LIXs) in two-dimensional moiré superlattices exhibit sharp and dense emission peaks, making them promising as highly tunable single-photon sources. However, the fundamental nature of these LIXs is still elusive. Here, we show the donor-acceptor pair (DAP) mechanism as one of the origins of these excitonic peaks. Numerical simulation results of the DAP model agree with the experimental photoluminescence spectra of LIX in the moiré MoSe2/WSe2 heterobilayer. In particular, we find that the emission energy-lifetime correlation and the nonmonotonic power dependence of the lifetime agree well with the DAP IX model. Our results provide insight into the physical mechanism of LIX formation in moiré heterostructures and pave new directions for engineering interlayer exciton properties in moiré superlattices.

Observation and Modulation of High-Temperature Moiré-Locale Excitons in van der Waals Heterobilayers

Transition metal dichalcogenide heterobilayers feature strong moiré potentials with multiple local minima, which can spatially trap interlayer excitons at different locations within one moiré unit cell (dubbed moiré locales). However, current studies mainly focus on moiré excitons trapped at a single moiré locale. Exploring interlayer excitons trapped at different moiré locales is highly desirable for building polarized light-emitter arrays and studying multiorbital correlated and topological physics. Here, via enhancing the interlayer coupling and engineering the heterointerface, we report the observation and modulation of high-temperature interlayer excitons trapped at separate moiré locales in WS2/WSe2 heterobilayers. These moiré-locale excitons are identified by two emission peaks with an energy separation of ∼60 meV, exhibiting opposite circular polarizations due to their distinct local stacking registries. With the increase of temperature, two momentum-indirect moiré-locale excitons are observed, which show a distinct strain dependence with the momentum-direct one. The emission of these moiré-locale excitons can be controlled via engineering the heterointerface with different phonon scattering, while their emission energy can be further modulated via strain engineering. Our reported highly tunable interlayer excitons provide important information on understanding moiré excitonic physics, with possible applications in building high-temperature excitonic devices.

Layered materials as a platform for quantum technologies

Layered materials are taking centre stage in the ever-increasing research effort to develop material platforms for quantum technologies. We are at the dawn of the era of layered quantum materials. Their optical, electronic, magnetic, thermal and mechanical properties make them attractive for most aspects of this global pursuit. Layered materials have already shown potential as scalable components, including quantum light sources, photon detectors and nanoscale sensors, and have enabled research of new phases of matter within the broader field of quantum simulations. In this Review we discuss opportunities and challenges faced by layered materials within the landscape of material platforms for quantum technologies. In particular, we focus on applications that rely on light-matter interfaces.

Excitons in mesoscopically reconstructed moiré heterostructures

Moiré effects in vertical stacks of two-dimensional crystals give rise to new quantum materials with rich transport and optical phenomena that originate from modulations of atomic registries within moiré supercells. Due to finite elasticity, however, the superlattices can transform from moiré-type to periodically reconstructed patterns. Here we expand the notion of such nanoscale lattice reconstruction to the mesoscopic scale of laterally extended samples and demonstrate rich consequences in optical studies of excitons in MoSe₂-WSe₂ heterostructures with parallel and antiparallel alignments. Our results provide a unified perspective on moiré excitons in near-commensurate semiconductor heterostructures with small twist angles by identifying domains with exciton properties of distinct effective dimensionality, and establish mesoscopic reconstruction as a compelling feature of real samples and devices with inherent finite size effects and disorder. Generalized to stacks of other two-dimensional materials, this notion of mesoscale domain formation with emergent topological defects and percolation networks will instructively expand the understanding of fundamental electronic, optical and magnetic properties of van der Waals heterostructures.

Lattice Reconstruction in MoSe2-WSe2 Heterobilayers Synthesized by Chemical Vapor Deposition

Vertical van der Waals heterostructures of semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides realize moiré systems with rich correlated electron phases and moiré exciton phenomena. For material combinations with small lattice mismatch and twist angles as in MoSe₂-WSe₂, however, lattice reconstruction eliminates the canonical moiré pattern and instead gives rise to arrays of periodically reconstructed nanoscale domains and mesoscopically extended areas of one atomic registry. Here, we elucidate the role of atomic reconstruction in MoSe₂-WSe₂ heterostructures synthesized by chemical vapor deposition. With complementary imaging down to the atomic scale, simulations, and optical spectroscopy methods, we identify the coexistence of moiré-type cores and extended moiré-free regions in heterostacks with parallel and antiparallel alignment. Our work highlights the potential of chemical vapor deposition for applications requiring laterally extended heterosystems of one atomic registry or exciton-confining heterostack arrays.

Dynamic Generation of Spin Spirals of Moiré Trapped Carriers via Exciton Mediated Spin Interactions

Stacking transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) to form moiré superlattices has provided exciting opportunities to explore many-body correlation phenomena of the moiré trapped carriers. TMD bilayers, on the other hand, host long-lived interlayer exciton (IX), an elementary excitation of long spin-valley lifetime that can be optically or electrically injected. Here we find that, through the Coulomb exchange between mobile IXs and carriers, the IX bath can mediate both Heisenberg and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya type spin interactions between moiré trapped carriers, controllable by exciton density and exciton spin current, respectively. We show the strong Heisenberg interaction and the extraordinarily long-ranged Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction here can jointly establish robust spin spiral magnetic orders in Mott-Wigner crystal states at various filling factors, with the spiral direction controlled by the exciton current.

Remarkably Deep Moiré Potential for Intralayer Excitons in MoSe2/MoS2 Twisted Heterobilayers

A moiré superlattice formed in twisted van der Waals bilayers has emerged as a new tuning knob for creating new electronic states in two-dimensional materials. Excitonic properties can also be altered drastically due to the presence of moiré potential. However, quantifying the moiré potential for excitons is nontrivial. By creating a large ensemble of MoSe₂/MoS₂ heterobilayers with a systematic variation of twist angles, we map out the minibands of interlayer and intralayer excitons as a function of twist angles, from which we determine the moiré potential for excitons. Surprisingly, the moiré potential depth for intralayer excitons is up to ∼130 meV, comparable to that for interlayer excitons. This result is markedly different from theoretical calculations based on density functional theory, which show an order of magnitude smaller moiré potential for intralayer excitons. The remarkably deep intralayer moiré potential is understood within the framework of structural reconstruction within the moiré unit cell.

Impact of indirect transitions on valley polarization in WS2 and WSe2

Controlling the momentum of carriers in semiconductors, known as valley polarization, is a new resource for optoelectronics and information technologies. Materials exhibiting high polarization are needed for valley-based devices. Few-layer WS₂ shows a remarkable spin-valley polarization above 90%, even at room temperature. In stark contrast, polarization is absent for few-layer WSe₂ despite the expected material similarities. Here, we explain the origin of valley polarization in both materials based on the interplay between two indirect optical transitions. We show that the relative energy minima at the Λ- and K-valleys in the conduction band determine the spin-valley polarization of the direct K-K transition. Polarization appears as the energy of the K-valley rises above the Λ-valley as a function of temperature and number of layers. Our results advance the understanding of the high spin-valley polarization in WS₂. This insight will impact the design of both passive and tunable valleytronic devices operating at room temperature.

Thickness- and Twist-Angle-Dependent Interlayer Excitons in Metal Monochalcogenide Heterostructures

Interlayer excitons, or bound electron-hole pairs whose constituent quasiparticles are located in distinct stacked semiconducting layers, are being intensively studied in heterobilayers of two-dimensional semiconductors. They owe their existence to an intrinsic type-II band alignment between both layers that convert these into p-n junctions. Here, we unveil a pronounced interlayer exciton (IX) in heterobilayers of metal monochalcogenides, namely, γ-InSe on ε-GaSe, whose pronounced emission is adjustable just by varying their thicknesses given their number of layers dependent direct band gaps. Time-dependent photoluminescense spectroscopy unveils considerably longer interlayer exciton lifetimes with respect to intralayer ones, thus confirming their nature. The linear Stark effect yields a bound electron-hole pair whose separation d is just (3.6 ± 0.1) Å with d being very close to d_Se = 3.4 Å which is the calculated interfacial Se separation. The envelope of IX is twist-angle-dependent and describable by superimposed emissions that are nearly equally spaced in energy, as if quantized due to localization induced by the small moiré periodicity. These heterostacks are characterized by extremely flat interfacial valence bands making them prime candidates for the observation of magnetism or other correlated electronic phases upon carrier doping.

Spin-Valley Depolarization in van der Waals Heterostructures

The appearance of van der Waals heterostructures offers a new solution to valleytronics. Here, we observe the spin-valley depolarization process of electrons and holes in type-II MoS₂-WSe₂ heterostructures simultaneously for the first time by valley-resolved broad-band femtosecond pump-probe experiments. The different depolarization paths between electrons and holes make them have different spin-valley polarization lifetimes. The spin-valley depolarization pathway of holes is mainly dominated by a phonon-assisted intervalley scattering process, while intra- and intervalley coupling can trigger additional depolarization pathways for electrons. The hole polarization lifetime can be further prolonged to more than three times in trilayer heterostructure 2MoS₂-WSe₂. For MoS₂-WS₂ that has strong orbital hybridization of Mo and W atoms, both electrons and holes lose the spin-valley polarization extremely soon after charge separation, behaving similarly to intraexcitons in a monolayer. Our work advances the basic understanding of spin-valley depolarization of van der Waals heterostructures and facilitates the effort toward longer lifetime valleytronic devices for information transfer and storage applications.

Imaging dynamic exciton interactions and coupling in transition metal dichalcogenides

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are regarded as a possible material platform for quantum information science and related device applications. In TMD monolayers, the dephasing time and inhomogeneity are crucial parameters for any quantum information application. In TMD heterostructures, coupling strength and interlayer exciton lifetimes are also parameters of interest. However, many demonstrations in TMDs can only be realized at specific spots on the sample, presenting a challenge to the scalability of these applications. Here, using multi-dimensional coherent imaging spectroscopy, we shed light on the underlying physics—including dephasing, inhomogeneity, and strain—for a MoSe2 monolayer and identify both promising and unfavorable areas for quantum information applications. We, furthermore, apply the same technique to a MoSe2/WSe2 heterostructure. Despite the notable presence of strain and dielectric environment changes, coherent and incoherent coupling and interlayer exciton lifetimes are mostly robust across the sample. This uniformity is despite a significantly inhomogeneous interlayer exciton photoluminescence distribution that suggests a bad sample for device applications. This robustness strengthens the case for TMDs as a next-generation material platform in quantum information science and beyond.

Interlayer Excitons in Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Semiconductors for 2D Optoelectronics

Optoelectronic materials that allow on-chip integrated light signal emitting, routing, modulation, and detection are crucial for the development of high-speed and high-throughput optical communication and computing technologies. Interlayer excitons in 2D van der Waals heterostructures, where electrons and holes are bounded by Coulomb interaction but spatially localized in different 2D layers, have recently attracted intense attention for their enticing properties and huge potential in device applications. Here, a general view of these 2D-confined hydrogen-like bosonic particles and the state-of-the-art developments with respect to the frontier concepts and prototypes is presented. Staggered type-II band alignment enables expansion of the interlayer direct bandgap from the intrinsic visible in monolayers up to the near- or even mid-infrared spectrum. Owing to large exciton binding energy, together with ultralong lifetime, room-temperature exciton devices and observation of quantum behaviors are demonstrated. With the rapid advances, it can be anticipated that future studies of interlayer excitons will not only allow the construction of all-exciton information processing circuits but will also continue to enrich the panoply of ideas on quantum phenomena.

The Magnetic Genome of Two-Dimensional van der Waals Materials

Magnetism in two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) materials has recently emerged as one of the most promising areas in condensed matter research, with many exciting emerging properties and significant potential for applications ranging from topological magnonics to low-power spintronics, quantum computing, and optical communications. In the brief time after their discovery, 2D magnets have blossomed into a rich area for investigation, where fundamental concepts in magnetism are challenged by the behavior of spins that can develop at the single layer limit. However, much effort is still needed in multiple fronts before 2D magnets can be routinely used for practical implementations. In this comprehensive review, prominent authors with expertise in complementary fields of 2D magnetism (i.e., synthesis, device engineering, magneto-optics, imaging, transport, mechanics, spin excitations, and theory and simulations) have joined together to provide a genome of current knowledge and a guideline for future developments in 2D magnetic materials research.

Magnon-Coupled Intralayer Moiré Trion in Monolayer Semiconductor-Antiferromagnet Heterostructures

Moiré fringe patterns created by stacking different 2D layered materials as artificial van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures have become a novel platform to study and engineer optically generated excitonic properties. The moiré patterns contribute to the formation of spatially ordered excitonic states (excitons and trions), which can be used in the quantum simulation of many-body systems and ensembles of coherent quantum light emitters. The intriguing moiré excitonic properties are affected by and controlled via the interaction with magnetic elements. Here, a moiré excitonic system interacting with the magnetic elementary excitation of antiferromagnetic orders in MoSe₂ /MnPS₃ vdW heterostructures is reported. The low-temperature photoluminescence spectra with additional fine spectral structures on the low-energy side, which are coupled magnon-trion peaks below the Néel temperature of MnPS₃ , are carefully investigated. The fine spectral structures with long lifetime and coherence time are assigned to intralayer trion-magnon complexes trapped in the moiré potentials (moiré trion-magnon complexes). These findings highlight the emergence of moiré trion-magnon complexes and provide a new way to explore novel quantum phenomena in moiré excitonic systems with magnetic functionalities.

Self-Trapped Interlayer Excitons in van der Waals Heterostructures

The self-trapped state (STS) of the interlayer exciton (IX) has aroused enormous interest owing to its significant impact on the fundamental properties of the van der Waals heterostructures (vdWHs). Nevertheless, the microscopic mechanisms of STS are still controversial. Herein, we study the corrections of the binding energies of the IXs stemming from the exciton-interface optical phonon coupling in four kinds of vdWHs and find that these IXs are in the STS for the appropriate ratio of the electron and hole effective masses. We show that these self-trapped IXs could be classified into type I with the increasing binding energy in the tens of millielectronvolts range, which are very agreement with the red-shift of the IX spectra in experiments, and type II with the decreasing binding energy, which provides a possible explanation for the blue-shift and broad line width of the IX's spectra at low temperatures. Moreover, these two types of exciton states could be transformed into each other by adjusting the structural parameters of vdWHs. These results not only provide an in-depth understanding for the self-trapped mechanism but also shed light on the modulations of IXs in vdWHs.

Interlayer exciton emission in a MoS2/VOPc inorganic/organic van der Waals heterostructure

Heterostructures built from two-dimensional (2D) materials and organic semiconductors offer a unique platform for addressing many fundamental physics and construction of functional devices by taking advantage of both the 2D materials and organic semiconductors. We report interlayer exciton emission in the near infrared range around 1.54 eV (∼805 nm) from the heterostructure of pyramidal VOPc (p-type) and transition metal dichalcogenide monolayer MoS₂ (VOPc/MoS₂). This contrasts the observation of photoluminescence (PL) from the SnCl₂Pc/MoS₂ heterostructure despite both being type-II heterostructures. We attribute the exciton emission to the carrier transition from the generated interface mid-gap states of VOPc to the ground states of MoS₂ in the heterostructure system as predicted from density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Furthermore, the observed PL signal of the VOPc/MoS₂ heterostructure shows blue shift, while the PL peak of the SnCl₂Pc/MoS₂ heterostructure shows red shift. Our finding opens up a new avenue to tune the optoelectronic properties of the van der Waals heterojunctions consisting of 2D materials and organic semiconductors for optoelectronic applications.

Dipole moment and pressure dependent interlayer excitons in MoSSe/WSSe heterostructures

The broken mirror symmetry of two-dimensional (2D) Janus materials brings novel quantum properties and various application prospects. Particularly, when stacking into heterostructures, their intrinsic dipole moments and large band offsets are very favorable to the photoexcited properties concerning electron-hole pairs, i.e., excitons. However, the effect of the intrinsic dipole moments on the interlayer excitons in the heterostructures composed of 2D Janus materials is still unclear. Here we use the GW/BSE methods to explore the effect of the intrinsic dipole moments on the interlayer excitons via varying the stacking configuration of MoSSe/WSSe heterostructures. Surprisingly, our results reveal that the parallel-arranged intrinsic dipole moments enhance the interlayer coupling in the heterostructures, and hence make the lowest interlayer exciton have an intensity comparable to the bright excitons while accompanied by a large binding energy and a radiative lifetime as long as 10^-7 s at 300 K, though it is almost a spin-forbidden process, and with the out-of-plane light polarization, long lifetime interlayer excitons are observed under the effect of selection rules. More intriguingly, we found that the photoexcited properties of the interlayer excitons considering the momentum in the stacking configuration with parallel-arranged intrinsic dipole moments are greatly tunable through hydrostatic pressure. These explorations provide a basic perspective for optoelectronic applications by means of engineering the intrinsic dipole moments in Janus heterostructures.

Recent progress on transition metal diselenides from formation and modification to applications

The development of graphene promotes the research of similar two-dimensional (2D) materials, especially 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) with semiconductor properties. Monolayer or few-layer TMDCs have several advantages, such as direct band gap, weak interlayer van der Waals force, large interlayer spacing, and abundant marginal active sites, which make them widely used in catalysis, optoelectronics, as well as energy conversion and storage devices. In addition, transition metal diselenides (TMDSs) also possess many intriguing characteristics. For instance, transition metal diselenides (e.g., MoSe₂) have a more stable 1T phase, larger interlayer spacing, smaller band gap, and more obvious metallic property of Se than TMDCs (e.g., MoS₂). Thus, it has become one of the most attractive research topics branching out from TMDCs. Herein, this review unveils the structures, synthesis, properties, modifications, applications, and perspectives for TMDSs.

Optical read-out of Coulomb staircases in a moiré superlattice via trapped interlayer trions

Moiré patterns with a superlattice potential can be formed by vertically stacking two layered materials with a relative twist or lattice constant mismatch. In transition metal dichalcogenide-based systems, the moiré potential landscape can trap interlayer excitons (IXs) at specific atomic registries. Here, we report that spatially isolated trapped IXs in a molybdenum diselenide/tungsten diselenide heterobilayer device provide a sensitive optical probe of carrier filling in their immediate environment. By mapping the spatial positions of individual trapped IXs, we are able to spectrally track the emitters as the moiré lattice is filled with excess carriers. Upon initial doping of the heterobilayer, neutral trapped IXs form charged IXs (IX trions) uniformly with a binding energy of ~7 meV. Upon further doping, the empty superlattice sites sequentially fill, creating a Coulomb staircase: stepwise changes in the IX trion emission energy due to Coulomb interactions with carriers at nearest-neighbour moiré sites. This non-invasive, highly local technique can complement transport and non-local optical sensing techniques to characterize Coulomb interaction energies, visualize charge correlated states, or probe local disorder in a moiré superlattice.

Moiré trions in MoSe2/WSe2 heterobilayers

Transition metal dichalcogenide moiré bilayers with spatially periodic potentials have emerged as a highly tunable platform for studying both electronic^1-6 and excitonic^4,7-13 phenomena. The power of these systems lies in the combination of strong Coulomb interactions with the capability of controlling the charge number in a moiré potential trap. Electronically, exotic charge orders at both integer and fractional fillings have been discovered^2,5. However, the impact of charging effects on excitons trapped in moiré potentials is poorly understood. Here, we report the observation of moiré trions and their doping-dependent photoluminescence polarization in H-stacked MoSe₂/WSe₂ heterobilayers. We find that as moiré traps are filled with either electrons or holes, new sets of interlayer exciton photoluminescence peaks with narrow linewidths emerge about 7 meV below the energy of the neutral moiré excitons. Circularly polarized photoluminescence reveals switching from co-circular to cross-circular polarizations as moiré excitons go from being negatively charged and neutral to positively charged. This switching results from the competition between valley-flip and spin-flip energy relaxation pathways of photo-excited electrons during interlayer trion formation. Our results offer a starting point for engineering both bosonic and fermionic many-body effects based on moiré excitons¹⁴.

Magic-angle lasers in nanostructured moiré superlattice

Conventional laser cavities require discontinuity of material property or disorder to localize a light field for feedback. Recently, an emerging class of materials, twisted van der Waals materials, have been explored for applications in electronics and photonics. Here we propose and develop magic-angle lasers, where the localization is realized in periodic twisted photonic graphene superlattices. We reveal that the confinement mechanism of magic-angle lasers does not rely on a full bandgap but on the mode coupling between two twisted layers of photonic graphene lattice. Without any fine-tuning in structure parameters, a simple twist can result in nanocavities with strong field confinement and a high quality factor. Furthermore, the emissions of magic-angle lasers allow direct imaging of the wavefunctions of magic-angle states. Our work provides a robust platform to construct high-quality nanocavities for nanolasers, nano light-emitting diodes, nonlinear optics and cavity quantum electrodynamics at the nanoscale.

Ultrafast Charge-Transfer Dynamics in Twisted MoS2/WSe2 Heterostructures

Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides offer a fascinating platform for creating van der Waals heterojunctions with exciting physical properties. Because of their typical type-II band alignment, photoexcited electrons and holes can separate via interfacial charge transfer. Furthermore, the relative crystallographic alignment of the individual layers in these heterostructures represents an important degree of freedom. Based on both effects, various fascinating ideas for applications in optoelectronics and valleytronics have been suggested. Despite its utmost importance for the design and efficiency of potential devices, the nature and the dynamics of ultrafast charge transfer are not yet well understood. This is mainly because the charge transfer can be surprisingly fast, usually faster than the temporal resolution of previous experimental approaches. Here, we apply time- and polarization-resolved second-harmonic imaging microscopy to investigate the charge-transfer dynamics for three MoS₂/WSe₂ heterostructures with different stacking angles at a previously unattainable time resolution of ≈10 fs. For 1.70 eV excitation energy, electron transfer from WSe₂ to MoS₂ is found to depend considerably on the stacking angle with the fastest transfer time observed to be as short as 12 fs. At 1.85 eV excitation energy, ultrafast hole transfer from MoS₂ to hybridized states at the Γ-point and to the K-points of WSe₂ has to be considered. Surprisingly, the corresponding decay dynamics show only a minor stacking-angle dependence indicating that radiative recombination of momentum-space indirect Γ-K excitons becomes the dominant decay route for all samples.

Moiré Patterns in 2D Materials: A Review

Quantum materials have attracted much attention in recent years due to their exotic and incredible properties. Among them, van der Waals materials stand out due to their weak interlayer coupling, providing easy access to manipulating electrical and optical properties. Many fascinating electrical, optical, and magnetic properties have been reported in the moiré superlattices, such as unconventional superconductivity, photonic dispersion engineering, and ferromagnetism. In this review, we summarize the methods to prepare moiré superlattices in the van der Waals materials and focus on the current discoveries of moiré pattern-modified electrical properties, recent findings of atomic reconstruction, as well as some possible future directions in this field.

Resonance Fluorescence from Waveguide-Coupled, Strain-Localized, Two-Dimensional Quantum Emitters

Efficient on-chip integration of single-photon emitters imposes a major bottleneck for applications of photonic integrated circuits in quantum technologies. Resonantly excited solid-state emitters are emerging as near-optimal quantum light sources, if not for the lack of scalability of current devices. Current integration approaches rely on cost-inefficient individual emitter placement in photonic integrated circuits, rendering applications impossible. A promising scalable platform is based on two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors. However, resonant excitation and single-photon emission of waveguide-coupled 2D emitters have proven to be elusive. Here, we show a scalable approach using a silicon nitride photonic waveguide to simultaneously strain-localize single-photon emitters from a tungsten diselenide (WSe₂) monolayer and to couple them into a waveguide mode. We demonstrate the guiding of single photons in the photonic circuit by measuring second-order autocorrelation of g⁽²⁾(0) = 0.150 ± 0.093 and perform on-chip resonant excitation, yielding a g⁽²⁾(0) = 0.377 ± 0.081. Our results are an important step to enable coherent control of quantum states and multiplexing of high-quality single photons in a scalable photonic quantum circuit.

Interlayer exciton formation, relaxation, and transport in TMD van der Waals heterostructures

Van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures based on transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) generally possess a type-II band alignment that facilitates the formation of interlayer excitons between constituent monolayers. Manipulation of the interlayer excitons in TMD vdW heterostructures holds great promise for the development of excitonic integrated circuits that serve as the counterpart of electronic integrated circuits, which allows the photons and excitons to transform into each other and thus bridges optical communication and signal processing at the integrated circuit. As a consequence, numerous studies have been carried out to obtain deep insight into the physical properties of interlayer excitons, including revealing their ultrafast formation, long population recombination lifetimes, and intriguing spin-valley dynamics. These outstanding properties ensure interlayer excitons with good transport characteristics, and may pave the way for their potential applications in efficient excitonic devices based on TMD vdW heterostructures. At present, a systematic and comprehensive overview of interlayer exciton formation, relaxation, transport, and potential applications is still lacking. In this review, we give a comprehensive description and discussion of these frontier topics for interlayer excitons in TMD vdW heterostructures to provide valuable guidance for researchers in this field.

Excitons in a reconstructed moiré potential in twisted WSe2/WSe2 homobilayers

Moiré superlattices in twisted van der Waals materials have recently emerged as a promising platform for engineering electronic and optical properties. A major obstacle to fully understanding these systems and harnessing their potential is the limited ability to correlate direct imaging of the moiré structure with optical and electronic properties. Here we develop a secondary electron microscope technique to directly image stacking domains in fully functional van der Waals heterostructure devices. After demonstrating the imaging of AB/BA and ABA/ABC domains in multilayer graphene, we employ this technique to investigate reconstructed moiré patterns in twisted WSe₂/WSe₂ bilayers and directly correlate the increasing moiré periodicity with the emergence of two distinct exciton species in photoluminescence measurements. These states can be tuned individually through electrostatic gating and feature different valley coherence properties. We attribute our observations to the formation of an array of two intralayer exciton species that reside in alternating locations in the superlattice, and open up new avenues to realize tunable exciton arrays in twisted van der Waals heterostructures, with applications in quantum optoelectronics and explorations of novel many-body systems.

Moiré excitons in MoSe2-WSe2 heterobilayers and heterotrilayers

Layered two-dimensional materials exhibit rich transport and optical phenomena in twisted or lattice-incommensurate heterostructures with spatial variations of interlayer hybridization arising from moiré interference effects. Here, we report experimental and theoretical studies of excitons in twisted heterobilayers and heterotrilayers of transition metal dichalcogenides. Using MoSe₂-WSe₂ stacks as representative realizations of twisted van der Waals bilayer and trilayer heterostructures, we observe contrasting optical signatures and interpret them in the theoretical framework of interlayer moiré excitons in different spin and valley configurations. We conclude that the photoluminescence of MoSe₂-WSe₂ heterobilayer is consistent with joint contributions from radiatively decaying valley-direct interlayer excitons and phonon-assisted emission from momentum-indirect reservoirs that reside in spatially distinct regions of moiré supercells, whereas the heterotrilayer emission is entirely due to momentum-dark interlayer excitons of hybrid-layer valleys. Our results highlight the profound role of interlayer hybridization for transition metal dichalcogenide heterostacks and other realizations of multi-layered semiconductor van der Waals heterostructures.

Excitons in strain-induced one-dimensional moiré potentials at transition metal dichalcogenide heterojunctions

The possibility of confining interlayer excitons in interfacial moiré patterns has recently gained attention as a strategy to form ordered arrays of zero-dimensional quantum emitters and topological superlattices in transition metal dichalcogenide heterostructures. Strain is expected to play an important role in the modulation of the moiré potential landscape, tuning the array of quantum dot-like zero-dimensional traps into parallel stripes of one-dimensional quantum wires. Here, we present real-space imaging of unstrained zero-dimensional and strain-induced one-dimensional moiré patterns along with photoluminescence measurements of the corresponding excitonic emission from WSe₂/MoSe₂ heterobilayers. Whereas excitons in zero-dimensional moiré traps display quantum emitter-like sharp photoluminescence peaks with circular polarization, the photoluminescence emission from excitons in one-dimensional moiré potentials shows linear polarization and two orders of magnitude higher intensity. These results establish strain engineering as an effective method to tailor moiré potentials and their optoelectronic response on demand.

Emergence of Highly Linearly Polarized Interlayer Exciton Emission in MoSe2/WSe2 Heterobilayers with Transfer-Induced Layer Corrugation

The availability of accessible fabrication methods based on deterministic transfer of atomically thin crystals has been essential for the rapid expansion of research into van der Waals heterostructures. An inherent issue of these techniques is the deformation of the polymer carrier film during the transfer, which can lead to highly nonuniform strain induced in the transferred two-dimensional material. Here, using a combination of optical spectroscopy, atomic force, and Kelvin probe force microscopy, we show that the presence of nanometer scale wrinkles formed due to transfer-induced stress relaxation can lead to strong changes in the optical properties of MoSe₂/WSe₂ heterostructures and the emergence of linearly polarized interlayer exciton photoluminescence. We attribute these changes to local breaking of crystal symmetry in the nanowrinkles, which act as efficient accumulation centers for interlayer excitons due to the strain-induced interlayer band gap reduction. Surface potential images of the rippled heterobilayer samples acquired using Kelvin probe force microscopy reveal variations of the local work function consistent with strain-induced band gap modulation, while the potential offset observed at the ridges of the wrinkles shows a clear correlation with the value of the tensile strain estimated from the wrinkle geometry. Our findings highlight the important role of the residual strain in defining optical properties of van der Waals heterostructures and suggest effective approaches for interlayer exciton manipulation by local strain engineering.

Highly energy-tunable quantum light from moiré-trapped excitons

Photon antibunching, a hallmark of quantum light, has been observed in the correlations of light from isolated atomic and atomic-like solid-state systems. Two-dimensional semiconductor heterostructures offer a unique method to create a quantum light source: Moiré trapping potentials for excitons are predicted to create arrays of quantum emitters. While signatures of moiré-trapped excitons have been observed, their quantum nature has yet to be confirmed. Here, we report photon antibunching from single moiré-trapped interlayer excitons in a heterobilayer. Via magneto-optical spectroscopy, we demonstrate that the discrete anharmonic spectra arise from bound band-edge electron-hole pairs trapped in moiré potentials. Last, we exploit the large permanent dipole of interlayer excitons to achieve large direct current (DC) Stark tuning up to 40 meV. Our results confirm the quantum nature of moiré-confined excitons and open opportunities to investigate their inhomogeneity and interactions between the emitters or energetically tune single emitters into resonance with cavity modes.