1. Quantum phase transitions of tri-layer excitons in atomically thin heterostructures
- Author
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Slobodkin, Yevgeny, Mazuz-Harpaz, Yotam, Refaely-Abramson, Sivan, Gazit, Snir, Steinberg, Hadar, and Rapaport, Ronen
- Subjects
Condensed Matter - Materials Science ,Condensed Matter - Strongly Correlated Electrons ,Quantum Physics - Abstract
We determine the zero temeperature phase diagram of excitons in the symmetric transition-metal dichalcogenide tri-layer heterosctructure WSe2/MoSe2/WSe2. First principle calculations reveal two distinct types of interlayer excitonic states, a lower energy symmetric quadrupole and a higher energy asymmetric dipole. While interaction between quadrupolar excitons is always repulsive, anti-parallel dipolar excitons attract at large distances. We find quantum phase transitions between a repulsive quadrupole lattice phase and a staggered (anti-parallel) dipolar lattice phase, driven by the competition between the exciton-exciton interactions and the single exciton energies. Remarkably, the intrinsic nature of each interlayer exciton is completely different in each phase. This is a striking example for the possible rich quantum physics in a system where the single particle properties and the many-body state are dynamically coupled through the particle interactions.
- Published
- 2020
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