Excitons in a mirror: Formation of "optical bilayers" using MoS2 monolayers on gold substrates

Abstract

We report coupling of excitons in monolayers of molybdenum disulphide to their mirror image in an underlying gold substrate. Excitons at the direct band gap are little affected by the substrate whereas strongly bound C-excitons associated with a van-Hove singularity change drastically. On quartz substrates only one C-exciton is visible (in the blue) but on gold substrates a strong red-shifted extra resonance in the green is seen. Exciton coupling to its image leads to formation of a "mirror biexciton" with enhanced binding energy. Estimates of this energy shift in an emitter-gold system match experiments well. The absorption spectrum of MoS2 on gold thus resembles a bilayer of MoS2 which has been created by optical coupling. Additional top-mirrors produce an "optical bulk." © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.