A highly excited atom having an electron that has moved into a level with large principal quantum number is a hydrogen-like object, termed a Rydberg atom. The giant size of Rydberg atoms leads to huge interaction effects. Monitoring these interactions has provided insights into atomic and molecular physics on the single-quantum level. Excitons--the fundamental optical excitations in semiconductors, consisting of an electron and a positively charged hole--are the condensed-matter analogues of hydrogen. Highly excited excitons with extensions similar to those of Rydberg atoms are of interest because they can be placed and moved in a crystal with high precision using microscopic energy potential landscapes. The interaction of such Rydberg excitons may allow the formation of ordered exciton phases or the sensing of elementary excitations in their surroundings on a quantum level. Here we demonstrate the existence of Rydberg excitons in the copper oxide Cu2O, with principal quantum numbers as large as n = 25. These states have giant wavefunction extensions (that is, the average distance between the electron and the hole) of more than two micrometres, compared to about a nanometre for the ground state. The strong dipole-dipole interaction between such excitons is indicated by a blockade effect in which the presence of one exciton prevents the excitation of another in its vicinity.

No abstract

No abstract

Recent high-resolution absorption spectroscopy on excited excitons in cuprous oxide [Nature 514, 343 (2014)] has revealed significant deviations of their spectrum from that of the ideal hydrogenlike series. Here we show that the complex band dispersion of the crystal, determining the kinetic energies of electrons and holes, strongly affects the exciton binding energies. Specifically, we show that the nonparabolicity of the band dispersion is the main cause of the deviation from the hydrogen series. Experimental data collected from high-resolution absorption spectroscopy in electric fields validate the assignment of the deviation to the nonparabolicity of the band dispersion.

No abstract