Multipath optical recombination of intervalley dark excitons and trions in monolayer WSe₂

Excitons and trions in transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are known to decay predominantly through intravalley transitions. Electron-hole recombination across different valleys can also play a significant role in the excitonic dynamics, but intervalley transitions are rarely observed in monolayer TMDs, because they violate the conservation of momentum. Here we reveal the intervalley recombination of dark excitons and trions through more than one path in monolayer WSe₂. We observe the intervalley dark excitons, which can recombine by the assistance of defect scattering or chiral-phonon emission. We also reveal that a trion can decay in two distinct paths – through intravalley or intervalley electron-hole recombination – into two different final valley states. Although these two paths are energy degenerate, we can distinguish them by lifting the valley degeneracy under a magnetic field. The intra- and inter-valley trion transitions are coupled to zone-center and zone-corner chiral phonons, respectively, to produce distinct phonon replicas. The observed multipath optical decays of dark excitons and trions provide much insight into the internal quantum structure of trions and the complex excitonic interactions with defects and chiral phonons in monolayer semiconductors.