Electrostatic control of photoluminescence from A and B excitons in monolayer molybdenum disulfide

Abstract

Tailoring excitonic photoluminescence (PL) in molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂) is critical for its various applications. Although significant efforts have been devoted to enhancing the PL intensity of monolayer MoS₂, simultaneous tailoring of emission from both A excitons and B excitons remains largely unexplored. Here, we demonstrate that both A-excitonic and B-excitonic PL of chemical vapor deposition (CVD)-grown monolayer MoS₂ can be tuned by electrostatic doping in air. Our results indicate that the B-excitonic PL changed in the opposite direction compared to A-excitonic PL when a gate voltage (V_g) was applied, both in S-rich and Mo-rich monolayer MoS₂. Through the combination of gas adsorption and electrostatic doping, a 12-fold enhancement of the PL intensity for A excitons in Mo-rich monolayer MoS₂ was achieved at V_g = −40 V, and a 26-fold enhancement for the ratio of B/A excitonic PL was observed at V_g = +40 V. Our results demonstrate not only the control of the conversion between A⁰ and A⁻, but also the modulation of intravalley and intervalley conversion between A excitons and B excitons. With electrostatic electron doping, the population of B excitons can be promoted due to the enhanced intravalley and intervalley transition process through electron–phonon coupling. The electrostatic control of excitonic PL has potential applications in exciton physics and valleytronics involving the B excitons.