Annihilation mechanism of excitons in a MoS2 monolayer through direct Förster-type energy transfer and multistep diffusion

Abstract: Atomically thin MoS2 layer is a direct bandgap semiconductor exhibiting strong electron-hole interaction due to the extreme quantum confinement and reduced screening of Coulomb interactions, which results in the formation of stable excitons at room temperature. Therefore, various excitonic properties of MoS2 monolayer are extremely important in determining the strength of light matter interactions including their radiative recombination lifetime and optoelectronic response. In this paper, we report a comprehensive study of the underlying annihilation mechanism of various types of exciton in MoS2 monolayer using the transient absorption spectroscopy. We rigorously demonstrate that the F\"orster-type resonance energy transfer is the main annihilation mechanism of A- and B-excitons while multistep diffusion process is responsible for C-exciton annihilation, which is supported by critical scientific evidence.