New research, conducted in part at Texas State University, has demonstrated a new way to control light emission from an atomically thin semiconductor monolayer, with potential applications in next-generation optoelectronic devices.
The study demonstrates that periodic electric potentials — known as moiré potentials — originating from twisted hexagonal boron nitride (t-hBN) multilayers that can modulate light emission from an adjacent molybdenum diselenide (MoSe₂) monolayer. The discovery highlights how moiré ferroelectricity emerging from moiré superlattice can be harnessed to remotely and dynamically control light at the atomic scale.
Yoichi Miyahara, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and part of the Materials Science, Engineering and Commercialization Program at TXST, along with master’s student Roy Dominguez, and doctoral student Rigo Mayorga- Luna, contributed to the research. Doctoral student Dong Seob Kim, of the Department of Physics and Center for Complex Quantum Systems at the University of Texas at Austin, headed up the international effort, under the guidance of Xiaoqin Li, Ph.D., UT-Austin. The study, titled “Moiré ferroelectricity modulates light emission from a semiconductor monolayer,” is published in the journal Science Advances.
