Anomalous energy shift of laterally confined two-dimensional excitons

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the energy of the ground state exciton confined to two-dimensional (2D) monolayers with circular shape. Within an effective mass approach employing a nonlocal screening effect on the Coulomb potential energy, we demonstrate how the exciton energy is correlated with the radius of the circle, electron-hole reduced mass, and 2D susceptibility. In addition, we show that a dead layer around the circle edge, into which the electron-hole pair cannot penetrate, is necessary for understanding the energy shift recently observed in monolayer WSe2 quantum dots.