Electrical control of interlayer exciton dynamics in atomically thin heterostructures

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates electrical control and transport of interlayer excitons in atomically thin TMD heterostructures, enabling new quantum optoelectronic device functionalities.

Contribution

It introduces electrical generation and manipulation of interlayer excitons in TMD heterostructures, a novel approach for quantum control of excitonic states.

Findings

Transport of neutral interlayer excitons across samples.

Electrical control of charged interlayer exciton drift.

Demonstration of long-lived interlayer excitons.

Abstract

Excitons in semiconductors, bound pairs of excited electrons and holes, can form the basis for new classes of quantum optoelectronic devices. A van der Waals heterostructure built from atomically thin semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) enables the formation of excitons from electrons and holes in distinct layers, producing interlayer excitons with large binding energy and a long lifetime. Employing heterostructures of monolayer TMDs, we realize optical and electrical generation of long-lived neutral and charged interlayer excitons. We demonstrate the transport of neutral interlayer excitons across the whole sample that can be controlled by excitation power and gate electrodes. We also realize the drift motion of charged interlayer excitons using Ohmic-contacted devices. The electrical generation and control of excitons provides a new route for realizing quantum manipulation of bosonic composite particles with complete electrical tunability.