Ab initio study of electromagnetic modes in two-dimensional semiconductors: Application to doped phosphorene

Abstract

Starting from the rigorous quantum-field-theory formalism, we derive a formula for the screened conductivity designed to study the coupling of light with elementary electron excitations and the ensuing electromagnetic modes in two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors. The latter physical quantity consists of three fully separable parts, namely, intraband, interband, and ladder conductivities, and is calculated beyond the random phase approximation as well as from first principles. By using this methodology, we study the optical absorption spectra in 2D black phosphorous, so-called phosphorene, as a function of the concentration of electrons injected into the conduction band. The mechanisms of phosphorene exciton quenching versus doping are studied in detail. It is demonstrated that already small doping levels ($n\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{12}\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}{\text{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}2}$) lead to a radical drop in the exciton binding energy, i.e., from 600 meV to 128 meV. The screened conductivity is applied to study the collective electromagnetic modes in doped phosphorene. It is shown that the phosphorene transversal exciton hybridizes with free photons to form an exciton-polariton. This phenomenon is experimentally observed only for the case of confined electromagnetic microcavity modes. Finally, we demonstrate that the energy and intensity of anisotropic 2D plasmon-polaritons can be tuned by varying the concentration of injected electrons.