Engineering Excitons through Polymorphism and Dimensional Confinement in Low-Dimensional Tellurium
Abstract
The interplay between dimensionality, band-edge electronic structure, and electron-hole interactions governs the optical response of low-dimensional tellurium, yet the microscopic origin of its excitonic behavior remains largely unexplored. Here, we investigate the quasiparticle, excitonic, and optical properties of two-dimensional tellurium polymorphs and one-dimensional helical nanowires using many-body GW and the Bethe--Salpeter equation. Our results reveal a strong dependence of the excitonic response on band-edge dispersion, crystal symmetry, and dimensional confinement. α-tellurene exhibits comparatively weak and spatially extended electron-hole correlations, whereas the SOC-induced quasi-flat band-edge states of β-tellurene give rise to a strongly bound and anisotropic near-infrared exciton. Momentum-resolved BSE eigenvectors and real-space exciton wave functions directly reveal the contrasting localization and anisotropy of these excitonic states. Remarkably, hydrogen-passivated hexagonal tellurene, previously identified as a quantum spin Hall phase with Z2=1, supports an even larger direct exciton binding energy of 0.51 eV together with a compact and nearly isotropic in-plane excitonic distribution. This demonstrates that strong electron-hole correlations are fully compatible with nontrivial band topology, while the binding strength and spatial character of the exciton remain strongly dependent on the underlying band-edge electronic structure and crystal symmetry. The one-dimensional helical nanowire represents the strong-confinement limit, exhibiting a direct high exciton binding energy and a pronounced shift of the optical response toward the ultraviolet.
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BibTeX
@misc{araujo2026engineering,
title = {{Engineering Excitons through Polymorphism and Dimensional Confinement in Low-Dimensional Tellurium}},
author = {Gabriel Elyas Gama Araujo and Alexandre Cavalheiro Dias and Andreia Luisa da Rosa},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.28861},
eprint = {2608.28861},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28861},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Engineering Excitons through Polymorphism and Dimensional Confinement in Low-Dimensional Tellurium
AU - Gabriel Elyas Gama Araujo
AU - Alexandre Cavalheiro Dias
AU - Andreia Luisa da Rosa
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/28
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.28861
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.28861
AB - The interplay between dimensionality, band-edge electronic structure, and electron-hole interactions governs the optical response of low-dimensional tellurium, yet the microscopic origin of its excitonic behavior remains largely unexplored. Here, we investigate the quasiparticle, excitonic, and optical properties of two-dimensional tellurium polymorphs and one-dimensional helical nanowires using many-body GW and the Bethe--Salpeter equation. Our results reveal a strong dependence of the excitonic response on band-edge dispersion, crystal symmetry, and dimensional confinement. α-tellurene exhibits comparatively weak and spatially extended electron-hole correlations, whereas the SOC-induced quasi-flat band-edge states of β-tellurene give rise to a strongly bound and anisotropic near-infrared exciton. Momentum-resolved BSE eigenvectors and real-space exciton wave functions directly reveal the contrasting localization and anisotropy of these excitonic states. Remarkably, hydrogen-passivated hexagonal tellurene, previously identified as a quantum spin Hall phase with Z_2=1, supports an even larger direct exciton binding energy of 0.51 eV together with a compact and nearly isotropic in-plane excitonic distribution. This demonstrates that strong electron-hole correlations are fully compatible with nontrivial band topology, while the binding strength and spatial character of the exciton remain strongly dependent on the underlying band-edge electronic structure and crystal symmetry. The one-dimensional helical nanowire represents the strong-confinement limit, exhibiting a direct high exciton binding energy and a pronounced shift of the optical response toward the ultraviolet.
ER -