Date/Time
Date(s) - 04/12/2021
12:00 am
Categories
Sufei Shi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Chemical and Biological Engineering
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Title: Light-Matter Interaction in Flatland: Excitonic Physics in 2D
Abstract: The emergence of the two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) ushers in a new chapter in excitonic physics. In monolayer TMDCs, the reduced screening enhances the Coulomb interaction and gives rise to strongly bound excitons with the binding energy of hundreds of meV. In addition, the valley degree of the freedom of the exciton is robust and can be accessed through chiral light. For the past few years, we have advanced our understanding of the valley contrasting excitonic physics in monolayer WSe2 and associated van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures. In this talk, I will discuss our identification of biexciton, charged biexciton, dark exciton,dark trion, exciton-phonon replica, and emerging exciton-phonon interaction in BN encapsulated monolayer WSe2. By applying a large out-of-plane magnetic field, we have also investigated the Landau quantization of exciton and exciton-phonon interaction in monolayer WSe2. With a newly developed photocurrent spectroscopy technique, we were able to resolve the Rydberg exciton state up to 11s in WSe2. We have also studied van der Waals heterostructure devices based on TMDCs, demonstrating a tunable exciton annihilation to exciton funneling transition in the MoSe2/WS2 hetero-bilayer device and giant Zeeman splitting of singlet and triplet exciton in the MoSe2/WSe2 hetero-bilayer device. Recently, we have identified various correlated insulating states in the WS2/WSe2 heterostructure, including Mott insulating state and generalized Wigner crystal states. We are currently exploring this fascinating platform to understand and control the correlated states in 2D.
Bio: Sufei Shi is currently an Assistant Professor in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He obtained his Ph. D with Prof. Dan Ralph in Physics from Cornell University in 2012, and he did his postdoc work with Prof. Feng Wang at UC Berkeley from 2011 to 2015. He was awarded ACS Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator award in 2018 and the NSF Career award in 2020.
