Suppressed out-of-plane polarizability of free excitons in monolayer WSe${}_2$

Abstract

Monolayer semiconductors are atomically thin quantum wells with strong confinement of electrons in two-dimensional (2D) plane. Here, we experimentally study the out-of-plane polarizability of excitons in hBN-encapsulated monolayer WSe${}_2$ in strong electric fields of up to 1.6 V/nm (16 MV/cm). We monitor free and bound exciton photoluminescence peaks with increasing electric fields at a constant carrier density, carefully compensating for unintentional photodoping in our double-gated device at 4K. We show that the Stark shift is < 0.4 meV despite the large electric fields applied, yielding an upper limit of polarizability α${}_z$ to be ~ 10${}^{-11}$ Dm/V. Such a small polarizability, which is nearly two orders of magnitude smaller than the previously reported value for MoS${}_2$, indicates strong atomic confinement of electrons in this 2D system and highlights the unusual robustness of free excitons against surface potential fluctuations.