Anisotropic plasmons, excitons, and electron energy loss spectroscopy of phosphorene

In this article, we explore the anisotropic electron energy loss spectrum (EELS) in monolayer phosphorene based on ab initio time-dependent density-functional-theory calculations. Similarly to black phosphorus, the EELS of undoped monolayer phosphorene is characterized by anisotropic excitonic peaks for energies in the vicinity of the band gap and by interband plasmon peaks for higher energies. On doping, an additional intraband plasmon peak also appears for energies within the band gap. Similarly to other two-dimensional systems, the intraband plasmon peak disperses as ωₚₗ∝√q in both the zigzag and armchair directions in the long-wavelength limit and deviates for larger wave vectors. The anisotropy of the long-wavelength plasmon intraband dispersion is found to be inversely proportional to the square root of the ratio of the effective masses: ωₚₗ(q ̂ \^y)/ωₚₗ(q ̂ \^x)=√mₓ/my.