Anisotropic complex refractive indices of atomically thin materials: determination of the optical constants of few-layer black phosphorus

TL;DR

This paper reviews and estimates the complex refractive indices of few-layer black phosphorus, using differential reflectance data and Kramers-Kronig analysis, and studies its optical response in multilayer systems.

Contribution

It provides the first estimates of the complex refractive index of few-layer black phosphorus using a constrained Kramers-Kronig approach.

Findings

Estimated the complex index of refraction of black phosphorus

Analyzed the optical response of multilayer phosphorene systems

Applied transfer matrix method to study multilayer optical properties

Abstract

In this work we briefly review the studies of the optical constants of monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides and few layer black phosphorus, with particular emphasis to the complex dielectric function and refractive index. Specifically, we give an estimate of the complex index of refraction of phosphorene and few-layer black phosphorus. We extracted the complex index of refraction of this material from differential reflectance data reported in literature by employing a constrained Kramers-Kronig analysis. Finally, we studied the linear optical response of multilayer systems embedding phosphorene by using the transfer matrix method.