Tunable Electronic Energy Level Alignment and Exciton Diversity in Organic–Inorganic van der Waals Heterostructures
van der Waals stacking of two-dimensional (2D) materials offers a powerful platform for engineering material interfaces with tailored electronic and optical properties. While most van der Waals multilayers have featured inorganic monolayers, incorporating molecular monolayers introduces additional degrees of tunability and functionality. Here, we investigate hybrid bilayers composed of atomically thin perylene-based molecular crystals interfaced with monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), specifically MoS<sub>2</sub> and WS<sub>2</sub>. Using the <i>ab initio</i> many-body perturbation theory within the GW approximation and the Bethe-Salpeter equation approach, we predict emergent properties beyond those of the isolated constituent systems. Notably, we find substantial renormalization of monolayer molecular crystal band gap due to TMD-induced polarization. Furthermore, by varying the TMD monolayer, we demonstrate tuning of the energy level alignment of the bilayer and subsequent control over a diversity of lowest-energy excitons, which include strongly bound hybrid excitons and long-lived charge-transfer excitons. These findings establish organic-inorganic van der Waals heterostructures as a promising class of materials for tunable optoelectronic devices and quantum excitonic phenomena, expanding the design space for low-dimensional systems.
Authors
- Jeffrey B. Neaton (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7585-6135)
- Jonah B. Haber (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8192-9994)
- Olugbenga Adeniran (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8075-5336)
- Aurélie Champagne (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6013-2887)
- Antonios M. Alvertis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5916-3419)
- Zhen–Fei Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2423-8430)
Institutions
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US)
- Université de Bordeaux (FR)
- Wayne State University (US)
- University of California System (US)
- Yukhnovskii Institute for Condensed Matter Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (UA)
- Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute (US)
- Institut Polytechnique de Bordeaux (FR)
- Advanced Engineering (Czechia) (CZ)
- The University of Texas at Austin (US)
- UCLouvain (BE)
- Stanford University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- ACS Nano
- Published
- 2026-02-19
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.5c11656
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- 2D Materials and Applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 16.08