Exciton absorption spectra in narrow armchair graphene nanoribbons in electric fields

Abstract: We present an analytical investigation of the exciton optical absorption in a narrow armchair graphene nanoribbon (AGNR) in the presence of a longitudinal external electric field directed parallel to the ribbon axis. The two-body 2D Dirac equation for the massless electron and hole subject to the ribbon confinement, Coulomb interaction and electric field is employed. The ribbon confinement is assumed to be much stronger than the internal exciton electric field which in turn considerably exceeds the external electric field. This justifies an adiabatic approximation implying a slow longitudinal and fast transverse electron-hole relative motion governed by the exciton attraction and accompanied by the external electric field and ribbon confinement effects, respectively. In the single subband approximation of the isolated size-quantized subbands induced by the ribbon confinement the exciton electroabsorption coefficient is determined in an explicit form. The pronounced dependencies of the exciton peak positions, widths and intensities on the ribbon width and electric field strength are traced. The electron-hole exciton attraction modifies remarkably the Franz-Keldysh electroabsorption in the frequency region both below and above the edges determined by the size-quantized energy levels. In the double-subband approximation of the interacting ground and first excited subbands the combined effect of the exciton electro- and autoionization caused by the electric field and intersubband coupling, respectively, are explored. Estimates of the expected experimental values for the typically employed AGNR show that for a weak electric field the exciton quasi-discrete states remain sufficiently stable to be observed in optical experiments, while relatively strong fields free the captured carriers to further restore their contribution to the transport.