Observation of Rydberg moire excitons

QY Hu and Z Zhan and HY Cui and YL Zhang and F Jin and X Zhao and MJ Zhang and ZC Wang and QM Zhang and K Watanabe and T Taniguchi and XW Cao and WM Liu and FC Wu and SJ Yuan and Y Xu, SCIENCE, 380, 1367-1372 (2023).

DOI: 10.1126/science.adh1506

Rydberg excitons, the solid-state counterparts of Rydberg atoms, have sparked considerable interest with regard to the harnessing of their quantum application potentials, but realizing their spatial confinement and manipulation poses a major challenge. Lately, the rise of two- dimensional moire superlattices with highly tunable periodic potentials provides a possible pathway. Here, we experimentally demonstrate this capability through the spectroscopic evidence of Rydberg moire excitons (X-RM), which are moire-trapped Rydberg excitons in monolayer semiconductor tungsten diselenide adjacent to twisted bilayer graphene. In the strong coupling regime, the X-RM manifest as multiple energy splittings, pronounced red shift, and narrowed linewidth in the reflectance spectra, highlighting their charge-transfer character wherein electron-hole separation is enforced by strongly asymmetric interlayer Coulomb interactions. Our findings establish the excitonic Rydberg states as candidates for exploitation in quantum technologies.

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