Excitonic optical processes in layered and atomically thin semiconductors find important applications in advanced optoelectronic and quantum devices. In this talk, we discuss the development and application of first-principles computational methods to investigate exciton-phonon interactions in atomically thin nitride semiconductors. We focus on atomically thin GaN quantum wells as a means to produce stable excitons at room temperature in a commercial material platform. We demonstrate that the reduced dimensionality increases the exciton binding energy by approximately an order of magnitude, enabling stable excitons at room temperature. Moreover, we investigate excitons and exciton-phonon interactions in bulk and monolayer hexagonal BN. We demonstrate that, despite its indirect gap, hexagonal BN exhibits bright phonon-assisted luminescence at room temperature for efficient excitonic UV light emitters. Our theoretical insights on exciton-phonon interactions and their impact on exciton recombination times aim to guide the design and development of atomically thin semiconductor-based optoelectronic and quantum devices with increased efficiency at room temperature.
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