Many-body theory of optical absorption in doped two-dimensional semiconductors

Abstract

In this paper, we use a many-body approach to study the absorption spectra of electron-doped two-dimensional semiconductors. Optical absorption is modeled by a many-body scattering Hamiltonian which describes an exciton immersed in a Fermi sea. The interaction between electron and exciton is approximated by an effective scattering potential, and optical spectra are calculated by solving for the exciton Green's function. From this approach, the trion can be assigned as a bound state of an electron-exciton scattering process, and the doping-dependent phenomena observed in the spectra can be attributed to several many-body effects induced by the interaction with the Fermi sea. While the many-body scattering Hamiltonian cannot be solved exactly, we reduce the problem to two limiting solvable situations. The first approach approximates the full many-body problem by a simple scattering process between the electron and the exciton, with a self-energy obtained by solving a Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE). An alternate approach assumes an infinite mass for the exciton, such that the many-body scattering Hamiltonian reduces to a Mahan-Nozi\'eres-De Dominicis (MND) model. The exciton Green's function can then be solved numerically exactly by a determinantal formulation, with an optical spectra that show signatures of the Fermi-edge singularity at high doping densities. The full doping dependence and temperature dependence of the exciton and trion line shapes are simulated via these two approximate approaches, with the results compared to each other and to experimental expectations.