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A double-edged sword in two-dimensional material science and technology is optically forbidden dark exciton. On the one hand, it is fascinating for condensed matter physics, quantum information processing, and optoelectronics due to its long lifetime. On the other hand, it is notorious for being optically inaccessible from both excitation and detection standpoints. Here, we provide an efficient and low-loss solution to the dilemma by reintroducing photonics bound states in the continuum (BICs) to manipulate dark excitons in the momentum space. In a monolayer tungsten diselenide under normal incidence, we demonstrated a giant enhancement (~1400) for dark excitons enabled by transverse magnetic BICs with intrinsic out-of-plane electric fields. By further employing widely tunable Friedrich-Wintgen BICs, we demonstrated highly directional emission from the dark excitons with a divergence angle of merely 7°. We found that the directional emission is coherent at room temperature, unambiguously shown in polarization analyses and interference measurements. Therefore, the BICs reintroduced as a momentum-space photonic environment could be an intriguing platform to reshape and redefine light-matter interactions in nearby quantum materials, such as low-dimensional materials, otherwise challenging or even impossible to achieve.

 

Abstract The interplay between chirality and magnetism generates a distinct physical process, the magneto-chiral effect, which enables one to develop functionalities that cannot be achieved solely by any of the two. Such a process is universal with the breaking of parity-inversion and time-reversal symmetry simultaneously. However, the magneto-chiral effect observed so far is weak when the matter responds to photons, electrons, or phonons. Here we report the first observation of strong magneto-chiral response to excitons in a twisted bilayer tungsten disulfide with the amplitude of excitonic magneto-chiral (ExMCh) anisotropy reaches a value of ~4%. We further found the ExMCh anisotropy features with a spectral splitting of ~7 nm, precisely the full-width at half maximum of the excitonic chirality spectrum. Without an externally applied strong magnetic field, the observed ExMCh effect with a spontaneous magnetic moment from the ferromagnetic substrate of thulium iron garnet at room temperature is favorable for device applications. The unique ExMCh processes provide a new pathway to actively control magneto-chiral applications in photochemical reactions, asymmetric synthesis, and drug delivery. 

Abstract A fascinating photonic platform with a small device scale, fast operating speed, as well as low energy consumption is two-dimensional (2D) materials, thanks to their in-plane crystalline structures and out-of-plane quantum confinement. The key to further advancement in this research field is the ability to modify the optical properties of the 2D materials. The modifications typically come from the materials themselves, for example, altering their chemical compositions. This article reviews a comparably less explored but promising means, through engineering the photonic surroundings. Rather than modifying materials themselves, this means manipulates the dielectric and metallic environments, both uniform and nanostructured, that directly interact with the materials. For 2D materials that are only one or a few atoms thick, the interaction with the environment can be remarkably efficient. This review summarizes the three degrees of freedom of this interaction: weak coupling, strong coupling, and multifunctionality. In addition, it reviews a relatively timing concept of engineering that directly applied to the 2D materials by patterning. Benefiting from the burgeoning development of nanophotonics, the engineering of photonic environments provides a versatile and creative methodology of reshaping light–matter interaction in 2D materials. 

Stemming from bound states in the continuum (BICs), momentum‐space polarization vortices observed in photonic structures provide an attractive approach to generating optical vortex (OV) beams. On the other hand, dominated by the selection rules, the harmonic generation from nanostructures exhibits a nonlinear geometric phase that depends on both the harmonic orders and the handedness of circularly polarized harmonic signals. Here, the third‐ and fifth‐harmonic optical vortex generation from an amorphous silicon photonic crystal slab, supporting the guided resonance associated with BICs at near infrared wavelengths, is numerically demonstrated. The results show that, determined by the nonlinearity phase, the topological charge (l_nω) associated with thenth‐harmonic OV beams follows σ(n∓1)q, whereqis the polarization charge of the BIC and the ∓ sign represents the opposite or same polarization of thenth‐harmonic signal relative to the circular polarization state (σ) of the fundamental waves. Exploiting harmonic multiplexing, this approach can significantly improve the channel capacity of OV generators based on topologically protected optical BICs.