Revealing broken valley symmetry of quantum emitters in WSe2 with chiral nanocavities

The microscopic origin and valley physics of quantum emitters (QEs) in 2D semiconductors are still not fully understood. Here, the authors report an anomalous magneto-optical behaviour of QEs in WSe2 monolayers coupled to chiral plasmonic nanocavities, suggesting the absence of intrinsic valley symmetry of the emitters. Single photon emission of quantum emitters (QEs) carrying internal degrees of freedom such as spin and angular momentum plays an important role in quantum optics. Recently, QEs in two-dimensional semiconductors have attracted great interest as promising quantum light sources. However, whether those QEs are characterized by the same valley physics as delocalized valley excitons is still under debate. Moreover, the potential applications of such QEs still need to be explored. Here we show experimental evidence of valley symmetry breaking for neutral QEs in WSe2 monolayer by interacting with chiral plasmonic nanocavities. The anomalous magneto-optical behaviour of the coupled QEs suggests that the polarization state of emitted photon is modulated by the chiral nanocavity instead of the valley-dependent optical selection rules. Calculations of cavity quantum electrodynamics further show the absence of intrinsic valley polarization. The cavity-dependent circularly polarized single-photon output also offers a strategy for future applications in chiral quantum optics.