Optical advantages of graphene on the boron nitride in visible and SW-NIR regions

Abstract

We theoretically study the optical advantages of graphene on boron nitride for advanced materials. Firstly, the optical absorption properties of graphene and the boron nitride are investigated theoretically, respectively. It is found that there is a strong optical absorption in the visible and SW-NIR regions for graphene; while the optical absorption of boron nitride is in the deep-ultraviolet region. For the two layer complex of graphene on the boron nitride, theoretical calculations further reveal that the optical property of graphene in the visual region is almost not influenced by boron nitride. The three dimensional charge difference densities reveal the optical properties of electron–hole distribution on the optical excitation for the single layer graphene. The ground state interaction between the graphene and the boron nitride is mainly the van der Waals interactions via edge atoms between two layers. Furthermore, charge difference density reveals that there is no charge transfer between graphene and boron nitride in the visual region on electronic transitions. So, the optical properties of graphene are not influenced by boron nitride in the visible region, which reveals that the boron nitride is one of the best substrates for graphene-based nano-photonic devices.