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Controlling Excitons in an Atomically Thin Membrane with a Mirror

You Zhou, Giovanni Scuri, Jiho Sung, Ryan J. Gelly, Dominik S. Wild, Kristiaan De Greve, Andrew Y. Joe, Takashi Taniguchi, Kenji Watanabe, Philip Kim, Mikhail D. Lukin, and Hongkun Park
Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 027401 – Published 14 January 2020
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Abstract

We demonstrate a new approach for dynamically manipulating the optical response of an atomically thin semiconductor, a monolayer of MoSe2, by suspending it over a metallic mirror. First, we show that suspended van der Waals heterostructures incorporating a MoSe2 monolayer host spatially homogeneous, lifetime-broadened excitons. Then, we interface this nearly ideal excitonic system with a metallic mirror and demonstrate control over the exciton-photon coupling. Specifically, by electromechanically changing the distance between the heterostructure and the mirror, thereby changing the local photonic density of states in a controllable and reversible fashion, we show that both the absorption and emission properties of the excitons can be dynamically modulated. This electromechanical control over exciton dynamics in a mechanically flexible, atomically thin semiconductor opens up new avenues in cavity quantum optomechanics, nonlinear quantum optics, and topological photonics.

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  • Received 12 May 2019
  • Revised 12 September 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.027401

© 2020 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

You Zhou1,2, Giovanni Scuri2, Jiho Sung1,2, Ryan J. Gelly2, Dominik S. Wild2, Kristiaan De Greve1,2, Andrew Y. Joe2, Takashi Taniguchi3, Kenji Watanabe3, Philip Kim2, Mikhail D. Lukin2, and Hongkun Park1,2,*

  • 1Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
  • 2Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
  • 3National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba 305-0044, Japan

  • *To whom correspondence should be addressed. hongkun_park@harvard.edu

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Vol. 124, Iss. 2 — 17 January 2020

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