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Monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) show a wealth of exciton physics. Here, we report the existence of a new excitonic species, the high-lying exciton (HX), in single-layer WSe2 with an energy of ~3.4 eV, almost twice the band-edge A-exciton energy, with a linewidth as narrow as 5.8 meV. The HX is populated through momentum-selective optical excitation in the K-valleys and is identified in upconverted photoluminescence (UPL) in the UV spectral region. Strong electron-phonon coupling results in a cascaded phonon progression with equidistant peaks in the luminescence spectrum, resolvable to ninth order. Ab initio GW-BSE calculations with full electron-hole correlations explain HX formation and unmask the admixture of upper conduction-band states to this complex many-body excitation. These calculations suggest that the HX is comprised of electrons of negative mass. The coincidence of such high-lying excitonic species at around twice the energy of band-edge excitons rationalizes the excitonic quantum-interference phenomenon recently discovered in optical second-harmonic generation (SHG) and explains the efficient Auger-like annihilation of band-edge excitons.

Structural defects vary the optoelectronic properties of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides, leading to concerted efforts to control defect type and density via materials growth or postgrowth passivation. Here, we explore a simple chemical treatment that allows on-off switching of low-lying, defect-localized exciton states, leading to tunable emission properties. Using steady-state and ultrafast optical spectroscopy, supported by ab initio calculations, we show that passivation of sulfur vacancy defects, which act as exciton traps in monolayer MoS2 and WS2, allows for controllable and improved mobilities and an increase in photoluminescence up to 275-fold, more than twice the value achieved by other chemical treatments. Our findings suggest a route for simple and rational defect engineering strategies for tunable and switchable electronic and excitonic properties through passivation.

Chalcogen vacancies are generally considered to be the most common point defects in transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) semiconductors because of their low formation energy in vacuum and their frequent observation in transmission electron microscopy studies. Consequently, unexpected optical, transport, and catalytic properties in 2D-TMDs have been attributed to in-gap states associated with chalcogen vacancies, even in the absence of direct experimental evidence. Here, we combine low-temperature non-contact atomic force microscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy, and state-of-the-art ab initio density functional theory and GW calculations to determine both the atomic structure and electronic properties of an abundant chalcogen-site point defect common to MoSe and WS monolayers grown by molecular beam epitaxy and chemical vapor deposition, respectively. Surprisingly, we observe no in-gap states. Our results strongly suggest that the common chalcogen defects in the described 2D-TMD semiconductors, measured in vacuum environment after gentle annealing, are oxygen substitutional defects, rather than vacancies., This work was supported by the Center for Computational Study of Excited State Phenomena in Energy Materials (C2SEPEM), which is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231, as part of the Computational Materials Sciences Program. Work performed at the Molecular Foundry was also supported by the Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under the same contract number. S.B. acknowledges fellowship support by the European Union under FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IOF-327581. S.B. and M.M.U acknowledge Spanish MINECO (MAT2017-88377-C2-1-R). S.R.A acknowledges Rothschild and Fulbright fellowships. B.S. appreciates support from the Swiss National Science Foundation under project number P2SKP2_171770. A.P. and O.V.Y. acknowledge support by the ERC Starting grant “TopoMat” (Grant No. 306504). M.F.C. acknowledges support from the U.S. National Science Foundation under project number EFMA-1542741. C.H. acknowledges support from NRF grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2018R1A2B6004538). DFT calculations were performed at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) under project s832 and the facilities of Scientific IT and Application Support Center of EPFL. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 for the GW calculations. This research used resources of the Advanced Light Source, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility under contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231.