Descriptions of excitons in pristine semiconducting crystals usually rely on the hydrogen model adopted for excitons. Owing to the weak screening in monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenides, however, the electron and hole separation in the strongest bound excitons is on the atomic scale, necessitating atomistic treatment. In this presentation, we present a minimalistic exciton model that accounts for the lattice and the spin-orbit and exchange interactions, thus making this model appropriate across the spectrum from Wannier to Frenkel excitons. Using this model, we show that the exciton lifetimes could be extended by transitioning the excitons into excitonic dark states. Longer exciton lifetimes could make these materials candidates for applications in energy management and quantum information processing.

This work has been funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), directly and through the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). E.S. and F.T. acknowledge support from NRL through the ONR Summer Faculty Program and the NRC Research Associateship Program, respectively.

The charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV^-) center is a remarkable defect in diamond which allows interrogation of spin state through its fluorescence. Among the proposed applications, background-free imaging based on fluorescent nanodiamond (FND) was demonstrated [1-3]. The FNDs emission can be discriminated from spurious fluorescence by switching on resonant microwaves (MW) and/or a static magnetic field [1-3], as demonstrated in cells [1] and potentially in small animals [2]. It is now important to understand the origin of the contrast in either of these approaches, and the optimal experimental parameters.

NV^- defects in single-crystal diamond as well as in FNDs were excited by a 532nm laser through the microscope objective. A compact spectrometer combined with appropriate filters allowed to measure the NV^- and NV⁰ emission. MW-induced contrast is achieved using a broadband circular antenna (i.d. 1mm) on a printed plate, and for field-induced contrast we use a small-sized permanent magnet (~300mT). They are placed closely behind the sample with in each case the magnetic field component along the optical axis of the objective.

For shallow implanted NV in (100) diamond as well as for FNDs the fluorescence is quenched by application of either resonant MWs or static field, with contrast levels systematically higher in the single crystal case than for deposited nanoparticles. The contrast values were measured for laser powers covering 6 orders of magnitude. After an initial rise at very low excitation (max. 13% in crystal, 7% in FND), the MW-induced contrast significantly decreases at higher laser powers. In parallel, field-induced contrast increases from about 12% to values of 38% and 20% for the single crystal and FNDs. This is described under steady state conditions using a 5-level model that includes radiative and nonradiative decay and ground state spin relaxation. The MW-contrast results from induced spin transitions in the triplet ground state while the field effect relies on state mixing within the ground and the excited triplets which change the decay rates. The analysis also shows that the applied excitation rates runs through 3 regimes from below the spontaneous relaxation rate, via an intermediate regime, to above the decay rate of the intermediate singlet.

This work demonstrates the advantages of field-induced contrast microscopy over the MW-induced approach. These become particularly important at high excitation rates which are more often applied in confocal microscopy.

[1] R. Igarashi, et al, Nano Lett. 2012, 12, 5726

[2] A. Hegyi, E. Yablonovitch, Nano Lett. 2013,13, 1173

We analyze the absorption spectrum and ultrafast charge dynamics in bi-layer 2L-MoS2 , 2L- MoSe2 and MoS2-WS2 systems by using time-dependent density functional theory in the density-matrix representation. In particular, we calculate the values of the binding energies of excitons in these structures for both intra- and inter-layer electron-hole excitations and demonstrate that, similar to the case of a single layer, these energies can be as large as hundred(s) of meVs. We also analyze the ultrafast dynamics of the electrons, holes and excitons in the photoexcited bilayers. We pay special attention to the ultrafast hole transfer in these systems and find transfer times of the order 100fs, in agreement with the experimental finding for the MoS2-WS2 system. We perform a detailed ab initio study of the spatially- and time-resolved charge density in the systems during the hole transfer and conclude that sulfur and selenium orbitals play an important role in the process. Finally, we discuss possible applications of the results in light harvesting technologies.

Work supported in part by DOE Grant No. DOE-DE-FG02-07ER46354

With the rising of 2D materials in surface sciences, the localization of mono- to few-layers of 2D materials, such as graphene, Molybdenum disulfide, hexagonal boron nitride is a time consumptive task. With the help of imaging spectroscopic ellipsometry flakes of 2D materials can be found and its layer numbers can be differentiated.

Therefore a spectroscopical mapping of the sample is done. At selected wavelengths nulling ellipsometry for each pixel in the field of view is done to measure Δ/Ψ. The measurement of all pixels is done simultaneously. To cover larger areas than the field of view a XY-patterning is done automatically. For each XY-position spectroscopic Δ/Ψ maps are obtained. Every pixel of a Δ/Ψ map represents the spectroscopic angle Δ/Ψ respectively. By comparing the spectral Δ/Ψ values for each pixel with the ellipsometric model of e.g. graphene monolayer, flakes of graphene monolayers on the sample can be found. To ensure, that only flakes are found, a grid with a threshold is used. The threshold indicates the number of pixels in the grid that need to fit to the model.

In the talk we present the capability of imaging ellipsometry to localize and identify monolayer to few-layers of 2D Materials. Flakes of MoS₂ with a size smaller than 10 µm can be localized. Monolayer of graphene can be distinguished from bilayers of graphene. To improve the time factor, the use of a Scheimpflug corrected objective is presented. Further investigations on different 2D materials, e.g. h-BN and the implementation of a Raman System is in progress.

Epitaxial growth of graphene via sublimation of silicon and graphitization of carbon atoms from silicon carbide (SiC) is ideal for large scale manufacturing of plasmonic devices but due to partially covalent bonding between the SiC (0001) substrate and the first carbon layer (6√3 buffer layer), the high room temperature mobility necessary for THz plasmonics is reduced significantly compared to exfoliated graphene. The objective of this work is to improve THz response of EG by increasing the mobility and carrier concentration of graphene through hydrogen intercalation where the Si atoms covalently bound to the buffer layer are satisfied by hydrogen atoms and create quasi free standing graphene.

Epitaxial graphene was grown from 6H-SiC (0001) in an Aixtron/Epigress VP508 horizontal hot-wall reactor, etching in H₂ during temperature ramp to 1570°C and growing graphene in Ar ambient at 1580°C. H-intercalation of EG was carried out in the same reactor at 1050°C with a flow of 80slm of H₂ and chamber pressure of 900mbar for 15-75 minutes. Morphology of the quasi-free standing graphene was observed by AFM and SEM. Raman spectroscopy using a 532nm laser (9.6mW) and spot size of 0.3μm were used to take 80x10μm maps of each sample where release of the buffer layer is observed, with broadening of the 2D peak full-width-half-max (FWHM) before and after H-intercalation is observed on the graphene terraces and step edges. Number of monolayers before and after H-intercalation was determined by XPS.

From SEM, AFM, Raman and Hall we observe changes in degree of hydrogen intercalation with respect to time. Large areas of partially intercalated EG is observed at 15 minutes which confirmed by a mix of charge carriers and reduced carrier mobility at ~250cm²/Vs. At 30 minutes some graphene terraces remain coupled to the SiC substrate with carrier mobility ~2250cm²/Vs. From 45, 60 and 75 minutes the buffer layer becomes mostly quasi free standing with small spots possibly coupled to the substrate as observed in the SEM with mobilities of ~3900, ~4000 and ~3700cm²/Vs respectively. Measurements of the resulting THz transmission spectra are currently underway to determine if the increase in mobility and carrier concentration results in narrower THz response.

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Molybdenum disulfide is a layered transition metal dichalcogenide. From the point of current research, 2D-nano materials based on MoS₂ are very promising because of the special semiconducting properties. The bulk material has an indirect 1.2 eV electronic bandgap, but single layer MoS₂ has a direct 1.8 eV bandgap. The monolayer can be used in prospective electronic devices like transistors (MOSFETs) or photo detectors.

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Wavelength spectra of ellipsometric parameters Delta and Psi of the MoS₂ monolayers and multilayers were recorded as well as microscopic maps. In case of Sapphire, The psi maps at wavelength of higher energies than the bandgap show a clear contrast between the monolayer and the substrate and at lower energies there is no contrast between the monolayer and the substrate, but the multilayer areas still show a clear contrast-making the unique properties of MoS₂ monolayers directly visible. The advantage of imaging ellipsometry is the visualisation of the shape of the monolayer and the opportunity to classify the homogenity of the optical properties of the microcrystallite. To quantify the optical properties, different approaches of optical modelling will be discussed.

Transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) monolayers have recently emerged as an important class of two-dimensional semiconductors with potential for electronic and optoelectronic devices. Unlike semi-metallic graphene, layered TMDCs have a sizeable bandgap. More interestingly, when thinned down to a monolayer, TMDCs transform from indirect-bandgap to direct-bandgap semiconductors, exhibiting a number of intriguing optical phenomena such as valley-selective circular dichroism, doping-dependent charged excitons and strong photocurrent responses. Using nonlinear optical spectroscopy, we probe experimentally the evidence of a series of excitonic dark states as well as structural symmetry in single-layer WS2 and MoS2.