Exciton-phonon relaxation bottleneck and radiative decay of thermal exciton reservoir in two-dimensional materials

Abstract

We study exciton radiative decay in a two-dimensional material, taking into account large thermal population in the non-radiative states, from which excitons are scattered into the radiative states by acoustic phonons. We find an analytical solution of the kinetic equation for the non-equilibrium distribution function of excitons in the radiative states. Our estimates for bright excitons in transition metal dichalcogenides indicate a strong depletion of radiative state population due to insufficient exciton-phonon scattering rate at low temperatures.