Analytical approach to excitonic properties of MoS2

We present an analytical investigation of the optical absorption spectrum of monolayer molybdenum-disulfide. Based on the density matrix formalism, our approach gives insights into the microscopic origin of excitonic transitions, their relative oscillator strength, and binding energy. We show analytical expressions for the carrier-light coupling element, which contains the optical selection rules and describes well the valley-selective polarization in MoS2. In agreement with experimental results, we find the formation of strongly bound electron-hole pairs due to the efficient Coulomb interaction. The absorption spectrum of MoS2 features two pronounced peaks corresponding to the A and B exciton. For MoS2 on a SiO2 substrate, these are characterized by binding energies of 455 meV and 465 meV, respectively. Our calculations reveal their relative oscillator strength and predict the appearance of further low-intensity excitonic transitions at higher energies. The presented approach is applicable to other transition metal dichalcogenides and can be extended to investigations of trion and biexcitonic effects.