Strain engineering of optical activity in phosphorene

Abstract

Optical activity is one of the most fascinating fields in current physics. The strong anisotropic feature in monolayer phosphorene leads to the emergence of non-trivial optoelectronic physics. This paper is devoted to a detailed analysis of strain effects on the optical activity of phosphorene ranging from low-optical-field to high-optical-field. To do so, a numerical study of the two-band tight-binding model is accomplished using the Harrison rule and the linear response theory. Although the transparency of phosphorene confirms at all frequencies independent of the strain modulus and direction, on average, from low- to high-optical-field limit, the polarization of the reflected wave at critical strains becomes circular and the ellipse axis tends to a rotation of 180°. It is found that the maximum absorption takes place at high-energy transitions, which quantitatively depends strongly on the strain modulus and direction. Furthermore, a detailed investigation of compressive and tensile strains results in the dominant contribution of the in-plane compressive and out-of-plane tensile strains to the reflected/transmitted light for low- and intermediate-optical-field ranges, whilst both contribute for the high-optical-field limit. However, overall, in-plane compressive and out-of-plane tensile strains come in to play a role in the absorption spectra. Thereby, the quality of the determined reflection, transmission and absorption waves depends on the regarded regime of the optical field, strain modulus, and strain orientation. These findings if sufficient can be performed and/or tuned experimentally, and a vast number of phosphorene-based optoelectronic devices can be achieved.