Intensity modulated optical transmission in a non-linear dielectric environment with an embedded mono-layer transition metal dichalcogenide

Abstract

We study the optical behavior of an arrangement in which the interface between a linear and non-linear dielectric media is covered by an embedded mono-layer of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDC). The optical behavior is qualitatively obtained through transmission and reflection coefficients which are a function of the third order non-linear susceptibility of the Kerr-type dielectric and the inter-band optical conductivity of the TMDC mono-layer. The inter-band optical conductivity of the TMDC mono-layer is calculated using the Kubo formalism from the linear response theory. In particular, we theoretically demonstrate that the optical response of this structure can be switched between the total internal reflection and a normal transmission regime by controlling the intensity of the incident radiation. The reflection and transmission functions are shown to be amenable to further control by altering the inter-band optical conductivity of the embedded TMDC mono-layer. The optical conductivity is directly related to its energy dispersion. We specifically choose two TMDC mono-layers, MoS2 and WSe2, which have nearly identical dispersion parameters apart from a much stronger spin-orbit coupling in the latter. The stronger spin-orbit coupling in WSe2 does not significantly alter the inter-band optical conductivity to manifest as an enhanced reflection spectrum. However, we find that application of an external perturbation such as strain could be effectively used to modulate the overall optical response. We conclude by discussing briefly the phenomenon of optical bistability which arises in materials exhibiting optical non-linearity via an intensity-dependent refractive index.