Excitonic transport driven by repulsive dipolar interaction in a van der Waals heterostructure

Dipolar bosonic gases are currently the focus of intensive research due to their interesting many-body physics in the quantum regime. Their experimental embodiments range from Rydberg atoms to GaAs double quantum wells and van der Waals heterostructures built from transition metal dichalcogenides. Although quantum gases are very dilute, mutual interactions between the particles could lead to exotic many-body phenomena such as Bose–Einstein condensation and high-temperature superfluidity. Here we report the effect of repulsive dipolar interactions on the dynamics of interlayer excitons in the dilute regime. By using spatially and temporally resolved photoluminescence imaging, we observe the dynamics of exciton transport, enabling a direct estimation of exciton mobility. The presence of interactions significantly modifies the diffusive transport of excitons, effectively acting as a source of drift force and enhancing the diffusion coefficient by one order of magnitude. Combining repulsive dipolar interactions with the electrical control of interlayer excitons opens up appealing new perspectives for excitonic devices.