Laterally extended states of interlayer excitons in reconstructed MoSe₂/WSe₂ heterostructures

Heterostructures made from 2D transition-metal dichalcogenides are known as ideal platforms to explore excitonic phenomena ranging from correlated moiré excitons to degenerate interlayer exciton ensembles. So far, it is assumed that the atomic reconstruction appearing in some of the heterostructures gives rise to a dominating localization of the exciton states. We demonstrate that the center-of-mass wavefunction of the excitonic states in reconstructed MoSe₂/WSe₂ heterostructures can extend well beyond the moiré periodicity of the investigated heterostructures. The results are based on real-space calculations yielding a lateral potential map for interlayer excitons within the strain-relaxed heterostructures with weak random disorder, as expected for realistic samples, and the corresponding real-space center-of-mass excitonic wavefunctions. We combine the theoretical results with cryogenic photoluminescence experiments, which support the computed level structure and relaxation characteristics of the interlayer excitons.