  Optical interband transitions in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides
such as WSe2 and MoS2 are governed by chiral selection rules. This allows
efficient optical initialization of an electron in a specific K-valley in
momentum space. Here we probe the valley dynamics in monolayer WSe2 by
monitoring the emission and polarization dynamics of the well separated neutral
excitons (bound electron hole pairs) and charged excitons (trions) in
photoluminescence. The neutral exciton photoluminescence intensity decay time
is about 4ps, whereas the trion emission occurs over several tens of ps. The
trion polarization dynamics shows a partial, fast initial decay within tens of
ps before reaching a stable polarization of about 20%, for which a typical
valley polarization decay time larger than 1ns can be inferred. This is a clear
signature of stable, optically initialized valley polarization.
