Search NASA⌕ Search

Engineering topics

Memaran, Shahriar

Publications and source records attributed to Memaran, Shahriar.

Thickness- and Twist-Angle-Dependent Interlayer Excitons in Metal Monochalcogenide Heterostructures

Interlayer excitons, or bound electron-hole pairs whose constituent quasiparticles are located in distinct stacked semiconducting layers, are being intensively studied in heterobilayers of two dimensional semiconductors. They owe their existence to an intrinsic type-II band alignment between both layers that convert these into p-n junctions. Here, we unveil a pronounced interlayer exciton (IX) in heterobilayers of metal monochalcogenides, namely gamma-InSe on epsilon-GaSe, whose pronounced emission is adjustable just by varying their thicknesses given their number of layers dependent direct bandgaps. Time-dependent photoluminescense spectroscopy unveils considerably longer interlayer exciton lifetimes with respect to intralayer ones, thus confirming their nature. The linear Stark effect yields a bound electron-hole pair whose separation d is just (3.6 ± 0.1) Å with d being very close to d Se = 3.4 Å which is the calculated interfacial Se separation. The envelope of IX is twist angle dependent and describable by superimposed emissions that are nearly equally spaced in energy, as if quantized due to localization induced by the small moiré periodicity. Furthermore, these heterostacks are characterized by extremely flat interfacial valence bands making them prime candidates for the observation of magnetism or other correlated electronic phases upon carrier doping.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Light sources with bias tunable spectrum based on van der Waals interface transistors

Light-emitting electronic devices are ubiquitous in key areas of current technology, such as data communications, solid-state lighting, displays, and optical interconnects. Controlling the spectrum of the emitted light electrically, by simply acting on the device bias conditions, is an important goal with potential technological repercussions. However, identifying a material platform enabling broad electrical tuning of the spectrum of electroluminescent devices remains challenging. Here, we propose light-emitting field-effect transistors based on van der Waals interfaces of atomically thin semiconductors as a promising class of devices to achieve this goal. We demonstrate that large spectral changes in room-temperature electroluminescence can be controlled both at the device assembly stage –by suitably selecting the material forming the interfaces– and on-chip, by changing the bias to modify the device operation point. Even though the precise relation between device bias and kinetics of the radiative transitions remains to be understood, our experiments show that the physical mechanism responsible for light emission is robust, making these devices compatible with simple large areas device production methods.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗