Exciton spectrum in atomically thin monolayers: The role of hBN encapsulation

Abstract: The high-quality structures containing semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides (S-TMDs) monolayer (MLs) required for optical and electrical studies are achieved by their encapsulation in hexagonal BN (hBN) flakes. To examine the effect of hBN thickness in these systems, we consider a model with an S-TMD ML placed between a semi-infinite in the out-of-plane direction substrate and complex top cover layers: a layer of finite thickness, adjacent to the ML, and a semi-infinite in the out-of-plane direction top part. We obtain the expression for the Coulomb potential for such a structure. Using this result, we demonstrate that the energies of excitonic $s$ states in the structure with WSe$_2$ ML change significantly for the top hBN with thickness less than 30 layers for different substrate cases, such as hBN and SiO$_2$. For the larger thickness of the top hBN flake, the binding energies of the excitons are saturated to their values of the bulk hBN limit.