Nanowerk September 5, 2022
In two-layered molybdenum disulfide, excitation with light produces two different types of electron-hole pairs: intralayer pairs, in which the electron and hole are localized in the same layer of the material, and interlayer pairs, whose hole and electron are in different layers and are therefore spatially separate from one another. The intralayer pairs interact strongly with light. The interlayer excitons are much dimmer but can be shifted to different energies and therefore allow researchers to adjust the absorbed wavelength. They exhibit very strong, nonlinear interactions with one another which play an essential role in many of their potential applications. An international team of researchers (Switzerland, France, Japan) has coupled these two types of electron-hole pairs by bringing the two of them to similar energies causing the properties of the two types of electron-hole pair to merge. The researchers could tailor-make merged particles that were not only very bright but also interacted very strongly with one another. These merged properties could be used to produce a novel source of individual photons, which are a key element of quantum communication. The researchers showed that this complex system of electron-hole pairs can be simulated using classical models from the fields of mechanics or electronics. Specifically, electron-hole pairs can be very effectively described as oscillating masses or circuits…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Schematic of the van der Waals heterostructure consisting of a naturally 2H-stacked homobilayer MoS2 embedded in h-BN… Credit: Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 107401, 1 September 2022