Screening effect on the optical absorption in graphene and metallic monolayers

Abstract

Screening is one of the fundamental concepts in solid state physics. It has a great impact on the electronic properties of graphene where huge mobilities were observed in spite of the large concentration of charged impurities. While static screening has successfully explained DC mobilities, screening properties can be significantly changed at infrared or optical frequencies. In this paper we discuss the influence of dynamical screening on the optical absorption of graphene and other 2D electron systems like metallic monolayers. This research is motivated by recent experimental results which pointed out that graphene plasmon linewidths and optical scattering rates can be much larger than scattering rates determined by DC mobilities. Specifically we discuss a process where a photon incident on a graphene plane can excite a plasmon by scattering from an impurity, or surface optical phonon of the substrate.