English

Magnetic brightening of light-like excitons in a monolayer semiconductor

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2025-08-20 v1

Abstract

Monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenides, such as WSe2_2, are direct gap, multi-valley semiconductors. Long-range electron-hole exchange interactions mix the valleys, yielding dispersion relations for massive (Q2\propto Q^2) as well as light-like (Q\propto Q) excitons. We report magneto-photoluminescence spectroscopy of excitons in the monolayer semiconductor WSe2_2 to B=±25B = \pm25T. The magnetic field-dependent line shape of the neutral exciton reveals the emergence of a new blue-detuned emission peak in both field orientations. Analyzing the distinct magnetic field-dependent shifts of both peaks facilitates the identification of the emergent feature as a spin-singlet with a significantly smaller reduced exciton mass as compared to the neutral exciton. The intensity of the emergent feature increases with magnetic field according to B2\propto B^2, as expected for a linear dispersion relation. The density-dependent diamagnetic shift ratios of both features follow the expected density dependence of the electron-hole exchange interactions. We interpret our observations within a picture of magnetic-field-induced coupling between the bright massive and quasi dark light-like exciton, leading to its brightening.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2508.13784,
  title  = {Magnetic brightening of light-like excitons in a monolayer semiconductor},
  author = {A. Delhomme and T. Amit and P. Ji and C. Faugeras and S. Refaely-Abramson and J. J. Finley and A. V. Stier},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.13784},
  year   = {2025}
}