Optical manipulation of the exciton charge state in single-layer tungsten disulfide

Raman scattering and photoluminescence (PL) emission are used to investigate a single layer of tungsten disulfide (WS2) obtained by exfoliating n-type bulk crystals. Direct gap emission with both neutral and charged exciton recombination is observed in the low temperature PL spectra. The ratio between the trion and exciton emission can be tuned simply by varying the excitation power. Moreover, the intensity of the trion emission can be independently tuned using additional subband gap laser excitation.