Clausius-Mossotti Lorentz-Lorenz relations and retardation effects for two-dimensional crystals

Abstract

The macroscopic surface electric susceptibility determines the linear optical properties of an insulating single-layer two-dimensional atomic crystal, and can be expressed in terms of the microscopic polarizability of the atoms. We compute the local electric field acting on a single atom, both for the static and the dynamic case, as the superposition of the external applied electric field and the fields generated by the induced dipoles in the crystal. We find that, in the dynamic case, retardation effects dephase the local electric field with respect to the incident one. This explains why the Fresnel coefficients of a single-layer two-dimensional atomic crystal are intrinsically complex quantities, even when a null macroscopic surface conductivity is assumed.