Steady-state cooperative emission of interlayer excitons in atomically thin light-emitting diodes
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: When an ensemble of emitters is confined within an optical wavelength, its radiation can become correlated, leading to cooperative emission. In two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) electron-hole bilayers, strong light-matter coupling enables the formation of interlayer excitons (IXs), long-lived dipolar excitations that provide an ideal setting for emergent collective phenomena. Here, we engineer an atomically thin light-emitting diode (LED) that generates electroluminescence (EL) from electrically injected IXs that are confined near the sample edges by an edge-enhanced fringing electric field. By measuring Hanbury-Brown-Twiss photon-photon correlations, we find pronounced signatures of collective decay in the form of large photon bunching followed by finite delay antibunching and bunching revivals. These emitter correlation signatures disappear when free charge carriers are doped to form a degenerate Fermi sea but are enhanced by the introduction of localized electrons. The results are consistent with a many-body quantum master equation that models the steady-state superradiant photon statistics of incoherently injected IXs. Our work establishes steady-state cooperative emission in a 2D TMD LED as a platform for studying strong light-matter interactions in electrically driven, non-equilibrium phases of Bose-Fermi mixtures.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: Valdivia, Andrés M. Mier, Dolgirev, Pavel E., Chen, Grace H., Leisgang, Nadine, Joe, Andrew Y., Ostermann, Stefan, Thureja, Deepankur, Zeng, Yongxin, Ding, Dapeng, Rhodes, Daniel, Kim, Bumho, Liu, Song, Taniguchi, Takashi, Watanabe, Kenji, Hone, James C., Yelin, Susanne F., Park, Hongkun, Lukin, Mikhail D., Kim, Philip
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funders: National Science Foundation, Harvard University, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung, Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, Center for Ultracold Atoms, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Office of Naval Research, Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Army Research Office
Awards: G2442584775, G3715997057, G4091144171, G4162329948, G465700681, G4806815962, G6012149654, Center for Ultracold Atoms, G708600390, G7252073159, Center: Center for Ultracold Atoms, G7996716713, G8355038343, G898758523, Physics and Applications of Quantum Nanophotonic Systems, QLCI: Fault Tolerant Quantum Systems, Architectures and Applications (FTQSAA)
OpenAlex ID: W7223152604