Optical activity in chiral stacks of 2D semiconductors

Abstract: We show that the stacks of two-dimensional semiconductor crystals with the chiral packing exhibit optical activity and circular dichroism. We develop a microscopic theory of these phenomena in the spectral range of exciton transitions which takes into account the spin-dependent hopping of excitons between the layers in the stack and the interlayer coupling of excitons via electromagnetic field. For the stacks of realistic two-dimensional semiconductors such as transition metal dichalcogenides, we calculate the rotation and ellipticity angles of radiation transmitted through such structures. The angles are resonantly enhanced at the frequencies of both bright and dark exciton modes in the stack. We also study the photoluminescence of chiral stacks and show that it is circularly polarized.