https://phys.org/news/2023-02-microscop ... antum.html
by Alison Hatt, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Excitons are drawing attention as possible quantum bits (qubits) in tomorrow's quantum computers and are central to optoelectronics and energy-harvesting processes. However, these charge-neutral quasiparticles, which exist in semiconductors and other materials, are notoriously difficult to confine and manipulate.
Now, for the first time, researchers have created and directly observed highly localized excitons confined in simple stacks of atomically thin materials. The work confirms theoretical predictions and opens new avenues for controlling excitons with custom-built materials.
"The idea that you can localize excitons on specific lattice sites by simply stacking these 2D materials is exciting because it has a variety of applications, from designer optoelectronic devices to materials for quantum information science," said Archana Raja, co-lead of the project and a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's (Berkeley Lab) Molecular Foundry, whose group led the device fabrication and optical spectroscopy characterization.