Dielectric Engineering of Electronic Correlations in a van der Waals Heterostructure

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Philipp Steinleitner - , University of Regensburg (Author)
  • Philipp Merkl - , University of Regensburg (Author)
  • Alexander Graf - , University of Regensburg (Author)
  • Philipp Nagler - , University of Regensburg (Author)
  • Kenji Watanabe - , National Institute for Materials Science Tsukuba (Author)
  • Takashi Taniguchi - , National Institute for Materials Science Tsukuba (Author)
  • Jonas Zipfel - , University of Regensburg (Author)
  • Christian Schüller - , University of Regensburg (Author)
  • Tobias Korn - , University of Regensburg (Author)
  • Alexey Chernikov - , University of Regensburg (Author)
  • Samuel Brem - , Chalmers University of Technology (Author)
  • Malte Selig - , Technical University of Berlin (Author)
  • Gunnar Berghäuser - , Chalmers University of Technology (Author)
  • Ermin Malic - , Chalmers University of Technology (Author)
  • Rupert Huber - , University of Regensburg (Author)

Abstract

Heterostructures of van der Waals bonded layered materials offer unique means to tailor dielectric screening with atomic-layer precision, opening a fertile field of fundamental research. The optical analyses used so far have relied on interband spectroscopy. Here we demonstrate how a capping layer of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) renormalizes the internal structure of excitons in a WSe2 monolayer using intraband transitions. Ultrabroadband terahertz probes sensitively map out the full complex-valued mid-infrared conductivity of the heterostructure after optical injection of 1s A excitons. This approach allows us to trace the energies and line widths of the atom-like 1s-2p transition of optically bright and dark excitons as well as the densities of these quasiparticles. The excitonic resonance red shifts and narrows in the WSe2/hBN heterostructure compared to the bare monolayer. Furthermore, the ultrafast temporal evolution of the mid-infrared response function evidences the formation of optically dark excitons from an initial bright population. Our results provide key insight into the effect of nonlocal screening on electron-hole correlations and open new possibilities of dielectric engineering of van der Waals heterostructures.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1402-1409
Number of pages8
JournalNano letters
Volume18
Issue number2
Publication statusPublished - 14 Feb 2018
Peer-reviewedYes
Externally publishedYes

External IDs

PubMed 29365262

Keywords

Keywords

  • atomically thin 2D crystals, dark excitons, Dichalcogenides, dielectric engineering, van der Waals heterostructures