Excitonic complexes in anisotropic atomically thin two-dimensional materials: black phosphorus and TiS$_3$

Abstract

The effect of anisotropy in the energy spectrum on the binding energy and structural properties of excitons, trions, and biexcitons is investigated. To this end we employ the stochastic variational method with a correlated Gaussian basis. We present results for the binding energy of different excitonic complexes in black phosphorus (bP) and TiS$_3$ and compare them with recent results in the literature when available, for which we find good agreement. The binding energies of excitonic complexes in bP are larger than those in TiS$_3$. We calculate the different average interparticle distances in bP and TiS$_3$ and show that excitonic complexes in bP are strongly anisotropic whereas in TiS$_3$ they are almost isotropic, even though the constituent particles have an anisotropic energy spectrum. This is also confirmed by the correlation functions.