Advancing Excited-State Properties of 2D Materials Using a Dielectric-Dependent Hybrid Functional

Abstract: Predicting accurate band gaps and optical properties of lower-dimensional materials, including two-dimensional van der Waals (vdW) materials and their heterostructures, remains a challenge within density functional theory (DFT) due to their unique screening compared to their bulk counterparts. Additionally, accurate treatment of the dielectric response is crucial for developing and applying screened-exchange dielectric-dependent range-separated hybrid functionals (SE-DD-RSH) for vdW materials. In this work, we introduce a SE-DD-RSH functional to the 2D vdW materials like MoS2, WS2, hBN, black phosphorus (BP), and \b{eta}-InSe. By accounting for in-plane and out-of-plane dielectric responses, our method achieves accuracy comparable to advanced many-body techniques like G0 W0 and BSE@G0 W0 at a lower computational cost. We demonstrate improved band gap predictions and optical absorption spectra for both bulk and layered structures, including some heterostructures like MoS2/WS2 . This approach offers a practical and precise tool for exploring electronic and optical phenomena in 2D materials, paving the way for efficient computational studies of layered systems.