Magnetic control of valley pseudospin in monolayer WSe 2

G. Aivazian, Zhirui Gong, Aaron M. Jones, Rui Lin Chu, J. Yan, D. G. Mandrus, Chuanwei Zhang, David Cobden, Wang Yao, X. Xu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

764 Scopus citations

Abstract

Local energy extrema of the bands in momentum space, or valleys, can endow electrons in solids with pseudospin in addition to real spin. In transition metal dichalcogenides this valley pseudospin, like real spin, is associated with a magnetic moment that underlies the valley-dependent circular dichroism that allows optical generation of valley polarization, intervalley quantum coherence and the valley Hall effect. However, magnetic manipulation of valley pseudospin via this magnetic moment, analogous to what is possible with real spin, has not been shown before. Here we report observation of the valley Zeeman splitting and magnetic tuning of polarization and coherence of the excitonic valley pseudospin, by performing polarization-resolved magneto-photoluminescence on monolayer WSe 2 . Our measurements reveal both the atomic orbital and lattice contributions to the valley orbital magnetic moment; demonstrate the deviation of the band edges in the valleys from an exact massive Dirac fermion model; and reveal a striking difference between the magnetic responses of neutral and charged valley excitons that is explained by renormalization of the excitonic spectrum due to strong exchange interactions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)148-152
Number of pages5
JournalNature Physics
Volume11
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2015

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