Anomalous disappearance of dark trions due to Auger recombination in hole-doped monolayers
Phys. Rev. B 114, 065406 – Published 7 July, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/bknz-p7hq
Abstract
In photoluminescence experiments of hole-doped monolayer, a counterintuitive phenomenon is observed: the emission from the lower-energy dark positive trion () anomalously diminishes at high hole densities, while the signal from the higher-energy bright positive trion () becomes dominant. In this work, we propose a nonradiative Auger recombination as the mechanism responsible for this paradoxical observation. We performed first-principles calculations based on density functional theory (DFT) to obtain the electronic band structure and Bloch wave functions of monolayer. To accurately capture the many-body correlation within the trion complex, we utilized the stochastic variational method (SVM). Using this combined framework, we have quantified the density-dependent Auger recombination rates by applying Fermi's golden rule. Our theoretical analysis reveals that as the hole density increases, the Auger recombination rate for dark trions increases dramatically. Specifically, at a critical hole density of a few times , our calculations show that the Auger lifetime drops below the nanosecond-scale measured lifetime of the dark positive trion at residual hole density. This nonradiative Auger process becomes the dominant pathway, effectively quenching the emission from , and leading to the experimentally observed dominance of bright trions. This study provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for understanding the nonradiative interaction that governs trion dynamics in hole-doped monolayer.