Chiral Excitonics in Monolayer Semiconductors on Patterned Dielectrics

Monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides feature tightly bound bright excitons at the degenerate valleys, where electron-hole Coulomb exchange interaction strongly couples the valley pseudospin to the momentum of the exciton. Placed on a periodically structured dielectric substrate, the spatial modulation of the Coulomb interaction leads to the formation of exciton Bloch states with real-space valley pseudospin texture displayed in a mesoscopic supercell. We find this spatial valley texture in the exciton Bloch function is pattern locked to the propagation direction, enabling nano-optical excitation of directional exciton flow through the valley selection rule. The left-right directionality of the injected exciton current is controlled by the circular polarization of excitation, while the angular directionality is controlled by the excitation location, exhibiting a vortex pattern in a supercell. The phenomenon is reminiscent of the chiral light-matter interaction in nanophotonics structures, with the role of the guided electromagnetic wave now replaced by the valley-orbit coupled exciton Bloch wave in a uniform monolayer, which points to new excitonic devices with nonreciprocal functionalities.