Electrically controlled interlayer trion fluid in electron-hole bilayers

TL;DR

This paper reports the first experimental realization of an electrically controlled interlayer trion fluid in 2D heterostructures, revealing tunable correlated phases of multiparticle charge complexes with potential for novel electronic devices.

Contribution

It introduces a new platform for studying correlated phases of multiparticle charge complexes in electron-hole bilayers with electrical control.

Findings

Formation of interlayer trions resembling positronium ions.

Tunable phases including exciton, trion, and plasma states.

Observation of high-order multiparticle complexes like tetrons and pentons.

Abstract

The combination of repulsive and attractive Coulomb interactions in a quantum electron(e)-hole(h) fluid can give rise to novel correlated phases of multiparticle charge complexes such as excitons, trions and biexcitons. Here we report the first experimental realization of an electrically controlled interlayer trion fluid in two-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures. We demonstrate that in the strong coupling regime of electron-hole bilayers, electrons and holes in separate layers can spontaneously form three-particle trion bound states that resemble positronium ions in high energy physics. The interlayer trions can assume 1e-2h and 2e-1h configurations, where electrons and holes are confined in different transition metal dichalcogenide layers. We show that the two correlated holes in 1e-2h trions form a spin-singlet state with a spin gap of ~1meV. By electrostatic gating, the equilibrium state of our system can be continuously tuned into an exciton fluid, a trion fluid, an exciton-trion mixture, a trion-charge mixture or an electron-hole plasma. Upon optical excitation, the system can host novel high-order multiparticle charge complexes including interlayer four-particle complex (tetrons) and five-particle complex (pentons). Our work demonstrates a unique platform to study novel correlated phases of tunable Bose-Fermi mixtures and opens up new opportunities to realize artificial ions/molecules in electronic devices.