Out-of-plane orientation of luminescent excitons in two-dimensional indium selenide.

Brotons-Gisbert, Mauro; Proux, Raphaël; Picard, Raphaël; Andres-Penares, Daniel; Branny, Artur; Molina-Sánchez, Alejandro; Sánchez-Royo, Juan F; Gerardot, Brian D · Nat Commun · 2019

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Van der Waals materials offer a wide range of atomic layers with unique properties that can be easily combined to engineer novel electronic and photonic devices. A missing ingredient of the van der Waals platform is a two-dimensional crystal with naturally occurring out-of-plane luminescent dipole orientation. Here we measure the far-field photoluminescence intensity distribution of bulk InSe and two-dimensional InSe, WSe<sub>2</sub> and MoSe<sub>2</sub>. We demonstrate, with the support of ab-initio calculations, that layered InSe flakes sustain luminescent excitons with an intrinsic out-of-plane orientation, in contrast with the in-plane orientation of dipoles we find in two-dimensional WSe<sub>2</sub> and MoSe<sub>2</sub> at room-temperature. These results, combined with the high tunability of the optical response and outstanding transport properties, position layered InSe as a promising semiconductor for novel optoelectronic devices, in particular for hybrid integrated photonic chips which exploit the out-of-plane dipole orientation.