Interlayer Exciton Diode and Transistor

Controlling the flow of charge neutral interlayer exciton (IX) quasiparticles can potentially lead to low loss excitonic circuits. Here, we report unidirectional transport of IXs along nanoscale electrostatically defined channels in an MoSe2-WSe2 heterostructure. These results are enabled by a lithographically defined triangular etch in a graphene gate to create a potential energy slide . By performing spatially and temporally resolved photo-luminescence measurements, we measure smoothly varying IX energy along the structure and high speed exciton flow with a drift velocity up to 2 x 10(6 )cm/s, an order of magnitude larger than previous experiments. Furthermore, exciton flow can be controlled by saturating exciton population in the channel using a second laser pulse, demonstrating an optically gated excitonic transistor. Our work paves the way toward low loss excitonic circuits, the study of bosonic transport in one-dimensional channels, and custom potential energy landscapes for excitons in van der Waals heterostructures.

Automated summary

We report the unidirectional transport of charge neutral interlayer exciton (IX) quasiparticles in a nano-scale channel in MoSe2-WSe2 heterostructure, enabling the development of low loss excitonic circuits and the study of bosonic transport in one-dimensional channels.