Sub-bandgap Voltage Electroluminescence and Magneto-oscillations in a WSe₂ Light-Emitting van der Waals Heterostructure

Abstract

We report on experimental investigations of an electrically driven WSe₂ based light-emitting van der Waals heterostructure. We observe a threshold voltage for electroluminescence significantly lower than the corresponding single particle band gap of monolayer WSe₂. This observation can be interpreted by considering the Coulomb interaction and a tunneling process involving excitons, well beyond the picture of independent charge carriers. An applied magnetic field reveals pronounced magneto-oscillations in the electroluminescence of the free exciton emission intensity with a 1/B periodicity. This effect is ascribed to a modulation of the tunneling probability resulting from the Landau quantization in the graphene electrodes. A sharp feature in the differential conductance indicates that the Fermi level is pinned and allows for an estimation of the acceptor binding energy.