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Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have unique absorption and emission properties that stem from their large excitonic binding energies, reduced-dielectric screening, and strong spin–orbit coupling. However, the role of substrates, phonons, and material defects in the excitonic scattering processes remains elusive. In tungsten-based TMDs, it is known that the excitons formed from electrons in the lower-energy conduction bands are dark in nature, whereas low-energy emissions in the photoluminescence spectrum have been linked to the brightening of these transitions, either via defect scattering or via phonon scattering with first-order phonon replicas. Through temperature and incident-power-dependent studies of WS2 grown by CVD or exfoliated from high-purity bulk crystal on different substrates, we demonstrate that the strong exciton–phonon coupling yields brightening of dark transitions up to sixth-order phonon replicas. We discuss the critical role of defects in the brightening pathways of dark excitons and their phonon replicas, and we elucidate that these emissions are intrinsic to the material and independent of substrate, encapsulation, growth method, and transfer approach.
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Ab initio calculations of spin-nonconserving exciton–phonon scattering in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides
Abstract We investigate the spin-nonconserving relaxation channel of excitons by their couplings with phonons in two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides using ab initio approaches. Combining GW-Bethe–Salpeter equation method and density functional perturbation theory, we calculate the electron–phonon and exciton–phonon coupling matrix elements for the spin-flip scattering in monolayer WSe 2 , and further analyze the microscopic mechanisms influencing these scattering strengths. We find that phonons could produce effective in-plane magnetic fields which flip spin of excitons, giving rise to relaxation channels complimentary to the spin-conserving relaxation. Finally, we calculate temperature-dependent spin-flip exciton–phonon relaxation times. Our method and analysis can be generalized to study other two-dimensional materials and would stimulate experimental measurements of spin-flip exciton relaxation dynamics.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1719797
- PAR ID:
- 10322827
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter
- Volume:
- 34
- Issue:
- 26
- ISSN:
- 0953-8984
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-648X/ac6649
