Magnetically tunable exciton valley coherence in monolayer WS$_2$ mediated by the electron-hole exchange and exciton-phonon interactions

Abstract: We develop a model, which incorporates both intra- and intervalley scatterings to master equation, to explore exciton valley coherence in monolayer WS$2$ subjected to magnetic field. For linearly polarized (LP) excitation accompanied with an initial coherence, our determined valley dynamics manifests the coherence decay being faster than the exciton population relaxation, and agrees with experimental data by Hao et al.[Nat. Phys. 12, 677 (2016)]. Further, we reveal that magnetic field may quench the electron-hole (e-h) exchange induced pure dephasing -- a crucial decoherence source -- as a result of lifting of valley degeneracy, allowing to magnetically regulate valley coherence. In particular, at low temperatures for which the exciton-phonon (ex-ph) interaction is weak, we find that the coherence time is expected to attain ${\tau}{\mathcal{C}}\sim 1$ ps, facilitating full control of qubits based on the valley pseudospin. For dark excitons, we demonstrate an emerging coherence even in the absence of initial coherent state, which has a long coherence time ($\sim 15$ ps) at low temperature. Our work provides an insight into tunable valley coherence and coherent valley control based on dark excitons.