We study collective plasmon excitations and screening of pure and disordered single- and bilayer black phosphorus (BP) beyond the low energy continuum approximation. The dynamical polarizability of phosphorene is computed using a tight-binding model that properly accounts for the band structure in a wide energy range. Electron-electron interaction is considered within the random phase approximation. Damping of the plasmon modes due to different kinds of disorder, such as resonant scatterers and long-range disorder potentials, is analyzed. We further show that an electric field applied perpendicular to bilayer phosphorene can be used to tune the dispersion of the plasmon modes. For sufficiently large electric field, the bilayer BP enters in a topological phase with a characteristic plasmon spectrum, which is gaped in the armchair direction.

• Received 27 July 2015
• Revised 7 September 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.92.115440