Signatures of moiré trions in WSe₂/MoSe₂ heterobilayers

Moiré superlattices formed by van der Waals materials can support a wide range of electronic phases, including Mott insulators^1-4, superconductors^5-10 and generalized Wigner crystals². When excitons are confined by a moiré superlattice, a new class of exciton emerges, which holds promise for realizing artificial excitonic crystals and quantum optical effects^11-16. When such moiré excitons are coupled to charge carriers, correlated states may arise. However, no experimental evidence exists for charge-coupled moiré exciton states, nor have their properties been predicted by theory. Here we report the optical signatures of trions coupled to the moiré potential in tungsten diselenide/molybdenum diselenide heterobilayers. The moiré trions show multiple sharp emission lines with a complex charge-density dependence, in stark contrast to the behaviour of conventional trions. We infer distinct contributions to the trion emission from radiative decay in which the remaining carrier resides in different moiré minibands. Variation of the trion features is observed in different devices and sample areas, indicating high sensitivity to sample inhomogeneity and variability. The observation of these trion features motivates further theoretical and experimental studies of higher-order electron correlation effects in moiré superlattices.