Observation of Ultralong Valley Lifetime in WSe2/MoS2 Heterostructures
The valley degree of freedom in two-dimensional (2D) crystals recently emerged as a novel information carrier in addition to spin and charge. The intrinsic valley lifetime in 2D transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD) is expected to be markedly long due to the unique spin-valley locking behavior, where the intervalley scattering of the electron simultaneously requires a large momentum transfer to the opposite valley and a flip of the electron spin. However, the experimentally observed valley lifetime in 2D TMDs has been limited to tens of nanoseconds thus far. We report efficient generation of microsecond-long-lived valley polarization in WSe2/MoS2 heterostructures by exploiting the ultrafast charge transfer processes in the heterostructure that efficiently creates resident holes in the WSe2 layer. These valley-polarized holes exhibit near-unity valley polarization and ultralong valley lifetime: We observe a valley-polarized hole population lifetime of more than 1 μs and a valley depolarization lifetime (that is, intervalley scattering lifetime) of more than 40 μs at 10 K. The near-perfect generation of valley-polarized holes in TMD heterostructures, combined with ultralong valley lifetime, which is orders of magnitude longer than previous results, opens up new opportunities for novel valleytronics and spintronics applications.
- Author (aut): Kim, Jonghwan
- Author (aut): Jin, Chenhao
- Author (aut): Chen, Bin
- Author (aut): Cai, Hui
- Author (aut): Zhao, Tao
- Author (aut): Lee, Puiyee
- Author (aut): Kahn, Salman
- Author (aut): Watanabe, Kenji
- Author (aut): Taniguchi, Takashi
- Author (aut): Tongay, Sefaattin
- Author (aut): Crommie, Michael F.
- Author (aut): Wang, Feng
- Contributor (ctb): Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering