Dark-Exciton-Mediated Fano Resonance from a Single Gold Nanostructure on Monolayer WS2 at Room Temperature.

Strong spatial confinement and highly reduced dielectric screening provide monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides with strong many-body effects, thereby possessing optically forbidden excitonic states (i.e., dark excitons) at room temperature. Herein, the interaction of surface plasmons with dark excitons in hybrid systems consisting of stacked gold nanotriangles and monolayer WS2 is explored. A narrow Fano resonance is observed when the hybrid system is surrounded by water, and the narrowing of the spectral Fano linewidth is attributed to the plasmon-enhanced decay of dark K-K excitons. These results reveal that dark excitons in monolayer WS2 can strongly modify Fano resonances in hybrid plasmon-exciton systems and can be harnessed for novel optical sensors and active nanophotonic devices.