Tunable spin and valley dependent magneto-optical absorption in molybdenum disulfide quantum dots.

Photonic quantum computer, quantum communication, quantum metrology and quantum optical technologies rely on the single-photon source (SPS). However, the SPS with valley-polarization remains elusive and the tunability of magneto-optical transition frequency and emission/absorption intensity is restricted, in spite of being highly in demand for valleytronic applications. Here we report a new class of SPSs based on carriers spatially localized in two-dimensional monolayer transition metal dichalcogenide quantum dots (QDs). We demonstrate that the photons are absorbed (or emitted) in the QDs with distinct energy but definite valley-polarization. The spin-coupled valley-polarization is invariant under either spatial or magnetic quantum quantization. However, the magneto-optical absorption peaks undergo a blue shift as the quantization is enhanced. Moreover, the absorption spectrum pattern changes considerably with a variation of Fermi energy. This together with the controllability of absorption spectrum by spatial and magnetic quantizations, offers the possibility of tuning the magneto-optical properties at will, subject to the robust spin-coupled valley polarization.

Persistent Skyrmion Lattice of Noninteracting Electrons with Spin-Orbit Coupling.

A persistent spin helix (PSH) is a robust helical spin-density pattern arising in disordered 2D electron gases with Rashba α and Dresselhaus ß spin-orbit (SO) tuned couplings, i.e., α=±ß. Here, we investigate the emergence of a persistent Skyrmion lattice (PSL) resulting from the coherent superposition of PSHs along orthogonal directions-crossed PSHs-in wells with two occupied subbands ν=1, 2. For realistic GaAs wells, we show that the Rashba α_{ν} and Dresselhaus ß_{ν} couplings can be simultaneously tuned to equal strengths but opposite signs, e.g., α_{1}=ß_{1} and α_{2}=-ß_{2}. In this regime, and away from band anticrossings, our noninteracting electron gas sustains a topologically nontrivial Skyrmion-lattice spin-density excitation, which inherits the robustness against spin-independent disorder and interactions from its underlying crossed PSHs. We find that the spin relaxation rate due to the interband SO coupling is comparable to that of the cubic Dresselhaus term as a mechanism of the PSL decay. Near anticrossings, the interband-induced spin mixing leads to unusual spin textures along the energy contours beyond those of the Rahsba-Dresselhaus bands. Our PSL opens up the unique possibility of observing topological phenomena, e.g., topological and Skyrmion Hall effects, in ordinary GaAs wells with noninteracting electrons.

Robust effective Zeeman energy in monolayer MoS2 quantum dots.

We report a theoretical investigation on the energy spectrum and the effective Zeeman energy (EZE) in monolayer MoS2 circular quantum dots, subjected to an out-of-plane magnetic field. Interestingly, we observe the emergence of energy-locked modes, depending on the competition between the dot confinement and the applied magnetic field, for either the highest K-valley valence band or the lowest [Formula: see text]-valley conduction band. Moreover, an unusual dot-size-independent EZE behavior of the highest valence and the lowest conduction bands is found. Although the EZEs are insensitive to the variation of quantum confinement, both of them grow linearly with the magnetic field, similar to that in the monolayer MoS2 material. The EZEs along with their 'robustness' against dot confinements open opportunities of a universal magnetic control over the valley degree of freedom, for quantum dots of all sizes.