Hybrid dark excitons in monolayer $\hbox{MoS}_2$

TL;DR

This paper explores the unique properties of hybrid dark excitons in monolayer MoS2, revealing their entangled quantum states, substrate-dependent Berry curvature, and potential for valley Hall effects and long-distance propagation.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of hybrid dark excitons formed by Dirac electrons and Schrödinger holes, highlighting their entanglement, Berry curvature, and optical valley Hall effect in MoS2.

Findings

Hybrid excitons have a substrate-dependent Berry curvature.

The optical valley Hall effect is observable in hybrid excitons.

Hybrid excitons have a longer lifetime enabling extended propagation.

Abstract

Transition metal dichalcogenides have a rich exciton landscape consisting of a variety of bright and dark excitonic states. We consider the lowest-energy dark states in $\hbox{MoS}_2$, which can be referred to as hybrid excitons, as they are formed by a Dirac electron and a Schr\"{o}dinger hole. The chiral nature of the Dirac electron introduces asymmetry to the excited exciton state spectrum and entangles the relative motion of the electron and hole with the center-of-mass motion. We demonstrate that the entanglement generates an additional contribution to the Berry curvature of hybrid excitons. The additional contribution is substrate-dependent and accounts for almost one quarter of the Berry curvature in suspended samples. The nontrivial geometry of hybrid excitons is manifested in the optical anomalous valley Hall effect, which can be observed via recently developed pump-probe photoemission spectroscopy. We argue that the Hall angle of hybrid excitons is approximately one half of that for bright excitons. Moreover, the anticipated long lifetime of hybrid excitons favors an extended propagation distance and allows the spatial separation of hybrid excitons with different valley indices.