Unveiling Valley Lifetimes of Free Charge Carriers in Monolayer WSe<sub>2</sub>.

Ersfeld, Manfred; Volmer, Frank; Rathmann, Lars; Kotewitz, Luca; Heithoff, Maximilian; Lohmann, Mark; Yang, Bowen; Watanabe, Kenji et al. · Nano Lett · 2020

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

We report on nanosecond-long, gate-dependent valley lifetimes of free charge carriers in monolayer WSe<sub>2</sub>, unambiguously identified by the combination of time-resolved Kerr rotation and electrical transport measurements. While the valley polarization increases when tuning the Fermi level into the conduction or valence band, there is a strong decrease of the respective valley lifetime consistent with both electron-phonon and spin-orbit scattering. The longest lifetimes are seen for spin-polarized bound excitons in the band gap region. We explain our findings via two distinct, Fermi-level-dependent scattering channels of optically excited, valley-polarized bright trions either via dark or bound states. By electrostatic gating we demonstrate that the transition-metal dichalcogenide WSe<sub>2</sub> can be tuned to be either an ideal host for long-lived localized spin states or allow for nanosecond valley lifetimes of free charge carriers (>10 ns).