Twist-angle engineering of excitonic quantum interference and optical nonlinearities in stacked 2D semiconductors

Abstract

Twist-engineering of the electronic structure in van-der-Waals layered materials relies predominantly on band hybridization between layers. Band-edge states in transition-metal-dichalcogenide semiconductors are localized around the metal atoms at the center of the three-atom layer and are therefore not particularly susceptible to twisting. Here, we report that high-lying excitons in bilayer WSe₂ can be tuned over 235 meV by twisting, with a twist-angle susceptibility of 8.1 meV/°, an order of magnitude larger than that of the band-edge A-exciton. This tunability arises because the electronic states associated with upper conduction bands delocalize into the chalcogenide atoms. The effect gives control over excitonic quantum interference, revealed in selective activation and deactivation of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in second-harmonic generation. Such a degree of freedom does not exist in conventional dilute atomic-gas systems, where EIT was originally established, and allows us to shape the frequency dependence, i.e., the dispersion, of the optical nonlinearity.

Here, the authors report on the large twist-angle susceptibility of excitons involving upper conduction bands in transition metal dichalcogenide bilayers. These high-lying excitons couple with band-edge excitons, and give rise to nonlinear quantum-optical processes that become tuneable by twisting.