Excitons and trions in bilayer van der Waals heterostructures

Excitons and trions in bilayer structures based on transition metal dichalcogenides are theoretically studied. Expressions for the effective potential of interparticle interaction in such a system with allowance for a significant dielectric contrast in the heterostructure are obtained. Simple and physically justified variational functions for electron–hole complexes are proposed. A variational calculation of the exciton and trion binding energies as functions of the interlayer distance, taking into account the specific features of the screening of the Coulomb interaction, is performed. The accuracy of the variational approach is confirmed by direct numerical calculation of the exciton binding energy as a function of the interlayer distance.