Brightening and Control of Spin‐Forbidden Dark Excitons in a Strained Monolayer Semiconductor

Abstract

Dark excitons are fascinating for condensed matter physics, quantum information processing, and optoelectronics due to their long lifetimes. However, direct optical access to dark excitons is still challenging due to the violation of the spin selection rule. Here, a new scheme for the brightening of spin‐forbidden dark exciton in WS2 monolayers by creating artificial out‐of‐plane shear strain that induces an effective in‐plane pseudo‐magnetic field is proposed. To reveal dark excitons, low‐temperature magneto‐photoluminescence experiments on the strained WS2 monolayers are performed. It is found that the dark excitons appear at 59 meV below the bright ones and exhibit an asymmetric magnetic field dependence, which is in agreement with the model taking into account the effect of the out‐of‐plane shear strain on spin‐flip processes of exciton states. The fieldless scheme has great potential in the application of dark excitons for new quantum information processing devices.